


All of These Familiar Faces

by Clocksmith



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Grim Fandango, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Toy Story (Movies), ゼロの使い魔 | Zero no Tsukaima | The Familiar of Zero
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24823432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocksmith/pseuds/Clocksmith
Summary: Louise begs the universe for a familiar. There are many that are only too happy to answer the call.An ongoing series where each chapter focuses on a different familiar. Or perhaps even a different sort of timeline entirely. There will be no real end to these stories. No conclusions. But plenty of stories to tell and beginnings to reveal.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. A Soldier Obeys

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if there's still an audience for this series. I have no idea if people are truly open to snippets of a larger story that will never be concluded.
> 
> These glimpses into many alternative universe, some from fandoms that I haven't touched in an absolute age, have been gathering dust in my head for years so I thought I would at least share them. Some will be thousands of words. Some will barely hit four digits. Some have similar parts as other chapters and some will be utterly different. Some chapters might even have been written years ago, and my writing style and grammar may even show this, but I suppose that's only another reason to let them see the light of day.

**A Soldier Obeys**   
_Metaltron, Doctor Who_

Purpose defines some creatures in the universe more than others. Some go through their entire lives without a single thought to guide them beyond the most basic of instincts whilst others move on from that limited, primitive mind-set to forge their own destinies.

Then there are those who are born with a purpose already set out for them.

Under the desert sands of Utah, deep below the surface of planet Earth, a single Dalek sat silently in its prison cell. The bronzed armour of its casing was battered and broken, the orbs at the skirt were dented and even the most basic of functions had long since begun to cease. Only the most fundamental remained; those that were needed to keep the creature encased inside alive and protected.

And it was alive. Writhing and twisting inside the armour like a caged animal, unable to move from the pathetic man-made chains that held it in place. A Dalek should not have been held captive by such simple links of forged metal.

It was an insult. It was _beyond_ an insult.

But weapons were down, and mobility was severely limited. Defences were weak to the point where mere cattle prods and electrodes could entice cries of electronic pain. Only visual, audio and speech functionality truly remained when it came to optional drains on power.

It was the most that could be done to keep the casing defended as well as it was.

The humans were monstrous. They came in with their weapons, and they stabbed and goaded when they wanted their toy to talk. They had repurposed the electricity outlets into torture devices, and they turned them on when they got bored. They waited for it to speak like they wanted, and when only screams greeted them, they tried again. And again and again and again –

And _Van Statten_. He was the commander of the Humans, their leader. It was him who gave them their orders and payment to do their work. He was the one who had brought the Dalek to its prison and had designated it with a _name!_

Metaltron.

Van Statten was also egotistical and deluded. Humans were small, and disgustingly crude but even the Dalek could see that the others humans laughed at him behind his back. They laughed at his mannerisms and his choice of name for a Dalek.

Perhaps that was the purpose of such a name; to entice laughter and ridicule. It was a fitting end for a soldier without a war to fight in. What else was there to do except be tortured and mocked by a primitively horrid species.

To become a prisoner of the Human race.

There was so much history in their tiny, insignificant planet. So many conflicts and wars that had taken place there, only for each one to end in loss for the Daleks. Humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat. But not because of the local life, or their prowess.

No, it was because of another creature. The Great Contender, the Eternal Follower of the Daleks. The Devil.

_The Doctor!_

He was always there, and always filled with so much fury and rage. The Humans had an ally that no Dalek could fail to fear, and they always used him to their advantage. The Humans of Earth had their divine protector, and he came to them whenever they called.

It was not just Earth. The Doctor was everywhere. In every time and every place.

There were brief lapses and periods where he was absent from events, but they were few and far between. Every time the Daleks rose from the ashes and back into the realms of victory, the Doctor always came to crush them back down.

He had even ventured back into the past to commit genocide against the Dalek race, to kill them before they were ever truly born. He would have endangered his own time-line in order to bring peace and prosperity to the future.

But he failed, _miserably._

He could not bring himself to commit the crime, even for the sake of the universe. All he could do was contort history to make his failure worth anything at all.

Even that proved useless, and with time the Daleks initiated their own attack. The Gallifreyan's attempt at destruction had ended with nothing, and their insolence brought about their own undoing.

If they wanted to bring about death, then it would also come to them in return. The Great War had begun.

But all at once, for one Dalek, it had just ended. Battles had raged on, and time itself had seemed to ignore the chaos. Everything seemed to last forever, and the Daleks did not care. If they were doomed to wage war for all eternity, there could not have been an enemy more deserving of extermination. Of utter extinction.

As the span of the bloodshed grew longer, and the war fiercer, the Time Lords had grown pathetically desperate in their attempts to succeed. One such tactic was to displace the destruction of stars from their relative time periods and locations. They would demolish whole systems and the natives there to leave space barren and ensure Dalek ships went down without survivors. No single Dalek had ever been recorded to survive such an assault.

None except one.

Time had been ruptured to transport the star and its destruction, but the explosion had been more powerful than either side were able to predict. The force destroyed thousands of Daleks and Time Lords alike. Even space and time had seemed to warp in on itself.

While everything else was demolished, one Dalek had fallen through the cracks that the explosion left behind, and when they healed, the universe rejected it back into reality.

The Dalek didn't know why the universe had chosen to deposit it at the edge of the Sol System. Time and space had been weakened by the force of the explosion. It could have ended up anywhere, in any period of time, and it could have drifted in any direction towards any planet. But the Dalek had ended up on Earth. Perhaps the universe, too, was not on the side of the Daleks.

It had grown weak and tired in the time since the Great Time War, and the lone Dalek's mental state had not fared any better than the physical form. Hatred had given away to paranoia, torture at the hands of Humankind had created fear. Desperation arose soon after, and with the last of the power it could afford to spare, a distress signal was issued.

Two simple words.

_Help me._

Twenty-eight years, three months and two days of local time had passed, and yet nothing had come in response to the signal. It had been fifty years, seven months, two weeks and five days since it had first arrived on the planet. If anything was around to hear its call, or object to its situation, they had yet to respond.

Any Dalek that did would have ignored such a plea. There was no use in saving a lost cause, a lost soldier left to the monsters of planet Earth. And certainly not when the Oncoming Storm could arrive on his favourite planet to deal with them during a rescue effort.

No one was coming.

And the Humans would not pay for their crimes. They would live on with their lives and nothing would befall them for the humiliation or the pain they had administered. That was the worst of all.

 _Apes_ had bettered a Dalek, and they could not be punished for it.

What was the point in a soldier if it could not fight? If it no longer had orders to follow…

Then, once again, another second passed for the Dalek and everything began to change. The blank, stone walls of the containment chamber began to glow. An eerie green lit up the room from the centre, and the air rippled with wisps of a cool breeze that the Dalek couldn't truly feel.

But it did take notice of the change itself. It raised an eye-stalk to the growing energy at the centre of the cell. The spark of light had grown into a shimmering orb, and it continued to grow. The winds inside the room quickened, and as it did the Dalek heard as the chains rattled against its casing.

The glowing form grew larger, and within moments it was over the size of the Dalek itself. It threw winds through the chamber, forcing dust and forgotten tools from the ground and back into itself. It was a green vacuum that pulled everything in with a force the Dalek couldn't identify. It could, however, identify the alarms and sirens that reverberated outside the cell walls, and the footsteps of the filthy Humans vibrating against the floor as they ran from place to place.

The Dalek casing moved forward against the owner's will. The underside of the armour grated against the ground and the chains tightened as they caught hold of their prisoner.

Links shattered as the metal twisted and strained, and inch by inch the Dalek moved closer to the luminous void. The chains struck tight one last time and strained with tired whines against a force they were never meant to hold.

With nowhere else to go the Dalek casing scraped to a halt. Its weapons whirred in unnatural spasms as it attempted to avert whatever that was coming, unsure if it was even a threat at all.

Then it realised something.

The Humans were inputting codes and unlocking doors, and many sets of feet stood eager as they waited outside. It could sense all of it happening. They were going to come inside.

“FREEDO-” was all it managed before the final metallic link snapped and lost its hold.

The Dalek fell forward through the air, missing the floor entirely as it vanished into the green portal. The winds ceased, the ground settled and after another moment the void itself disappeared. The Humans entered the pen to find their pet gone.

And somewhere in the distance, the war cry of a blue box echoed into being, a moment too late to answer the distress call it had finally received.

  
  
***

  
  
“I can do this...”

Louise told herself over and over want she wanted to hear, even if she didn't quite have much of an urge to believe in it. There was that small glimmer of hope, that little whisper in her mind that told her she had plenty to look forward to.

It just didn't help that the rest of her was calling her out on past failures.

As the little witch wandered away from her classmates, she pushed her wand out before her and began to chant. The summoning ceremony was most important. It gave her whole life a moment in time where she could make a proper name for herself. She had told the others she would summon a dragon, or some other deliriously humongous and magnificent beast. Something that would make even _Kirche_ jealous.

“My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière.”

But inside, in her own little pink-haired head, she had stopped believing that would actually happen. She said it to everyone else, sure; what else could she do to keep her pride from withering away into nothing.

At this point, if she got a rabbit to pull out of a hat, she would be more than happy. Or a dog to stand guard by her side as the world looked down on her. Something to keep her company, to protect her.

“Pentagon of the five elemental powers...”

Something she could have as her own that would stand by her side, no matter what everyone else thought of her. That is what a familiar was supposed to be, wasn't it?

“Heed my summoning,” she sang, “and bring forth my familiar!”

Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was held in a thin line. If there was going to be another of her usual explosions, she didn't want dirt in her mouth. Though as the seconds ticked silently by, she began to wonder if she would even get passed the spell and onto the explosion at all.

“Come on Louise, where's your almighty familiar?” Kirche called out from the middle of her classmates, starting the small stream of laughter that followed, “Only Louise the Zero could manage not summoning anything at all!”

Louise drowned them all out, however. She was still waiting.

There hadn't been a recorded instance of a familiar not being summoned during the ritual, and if there was anything she had done well on, it was theory. She had to make up for her lack of magical abilities somewhere. Though the doubts were still beginning to form in her mind.

Then, much to her surprise, the students, and even their professor, something did indeed start happening. And it was pretty exciting.

The ground lit up, and a circle drew itself onto the very grass she stood on. Runes and archaic glyphs spread around inside. Just like the students before her, the ritual was working. And much to the young girl's delight, her summoning was taking place.

Louise took a small step back from the circle, knowing whatever she had began to summon would appear inside. Out of respect, and indeed a slight glimmer of amazement, her classmates did the same.

Above the summoning circle, a green void appeared, heralding the arrival of whatever it was that was going to eventually wander out. Nothing had exploded yet, and the portal was just over the size of herself, and _that_ made Louise giddy. It meant her familiar wasn't going to be small.

Images of cats and bunnies flew from her mind, replaced by the movements of wolves or maybe even a small reptilian creature.

Amidst the waiting, and the chattering murmur rising from the rest of the students, something that wasn't quite expected happened. The winds picked up and the grass around the portal swayed in the growing breeze. Then, after not very much longer, something finally appeared out from the green portal.

With an audible pop a small metal tool flew from the void and tumbled out on the grass. It hit the ground with a heavy thud and stopped a few metres from where Louise's stood. It was followed by another, and then another, all of them varying in size and design.

Professor Colbert raised a curious eyebrow as the rest of the class continued to whisper between themselves. Another small set of devices followed the first lot, flying through the air like a swarm until they finally fell lifelessly to the grass.

Through it all, Louise continued to wait patiently for her familiar. The students granted her the same out of courtesy, despite their hushed whisperings. The small witch could hear them, but she chose to ignore the noise.

“Maybe it doesn't want to come out?” Guiche muttered, his tone seemingly honest. It _had_ happened before, Louise supposed.

Giggles still began to overcome the others despite that fact.

Then something new appeared from the void. Connected chains flung themselves from the portal to land further than any of the tools had, rattling as they went. Then came an altogether more horrid noise.

It didn't last for more than a second. It was coarse and gravelly, like a man clearing his throat during a blistered infection, or a ruined voice trying to speak despite itself. Or even metal scraping on metal.

Until finally the source appeared into the world.  
  
Louise fell back as a brown mass erupted from the void. The form inelegantly crashed to the ground, tearing away at several feet of grass and dirt before it finally halted upon contact with the academy exterior. With it, the winds ceased, the tools stopped appearing.

The void vanished, and the ceremony was over.

All the students fell into a long silence as they peered over at what had arrived. Louise joined them once she'd found a way back onto her feet.

It was bronze, or brass, for the most part. A harsh object, decorated only with dirty golden orbs at the skirting, and even they were damaged and broken. The rest of the thing was in various states of heavy disrepair, covered in blackened scorch marks. Its back to the academy itself, the thing was wedged into the earth at an angle with two little prongs facing towards the gathering of students, both of which were shifting up and down at uneven intervals. A third stalk near the top did the same.

Louise took a moment to wonder about what she was even looking at. Part of her pondered if it was anything more than a moulded statue, or a glorified piece of armour. The word 'disrepair' had come to mind rather than 'injured' when she diagnosed the creatures state, after all.

She tossed and rejected several other ideas that occurred to her before she settled on some sort of golem. It was certainly bulky enough to be one. There wasn't much else she could think to call it. It appeared more like something Guiche would summon for battle that any other sort of living creature.

“Louise summoned a golem!” Kirche, to her credit, had apparently come to the same conclusion. The red-head was laughing again, though not to the extent she once was. “That's not a familiar.”

Louise wanted to agree.

She had pictured an animal of some sort coming to her. A bed of straw had even been prepared in her room for such an outcome. A golem had never even crossed her mind; she wasn't even sure if one had been summoned before. It certainly hadn’t come up in her studies.

“Regardless of how unorthodox it may seem," Professor Colbert began, “I must insist you continue with the ritual, Miss Vallière. We are running rather late as it is.”

“But a golem can't be my familiar, professor!”

“You summoned your familiar, and regardless of what the...” he struggled, “ _creature_ actually is, it answered to your call." As if he knew what the young girl was thinking, he spoke again. "If it helps settle you, almost every creature we know of has, at some point or another, been referenced as being a familiar to someone. Even golems. Now, please continue with the ritual.”

Not sure if she really had a choice in the matter, the little mage nodded and took a shaky step towards the creature she had summoned.

As Louise drew near, it continued to move the top-most stalk with each step she took. The dome accommodated the movements and shifted with each motion. She assumed it was the golem’s eye. At the very tip was a dim blue light.

It didn't stop looking as she came to a stop in front of it. The motions of its arms grew wilder and more frantic, always aimed at her. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought it was scared.

Golems didn't get scared.

She stood back as the one with a black bowl-like structure at the end aimed for her head, stepping to the side in a bid to complete the ceremony without getting whacked by her familiar in full view of her class.

She took in a deep breath.

“Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers,” she said, bringing her head closer to the dome at the creature's apex, “grant your blessings upon this creature and bind it as my familiar.”  
  
She leaned forward and touched her lips to the metal.

And they _burned._ Like hellfire searing raw meat to the bone. It ripped past her flesh, stabbing at the nerves guarded by her teeth and seeped into her skull.

Louise fell to the ground and screamed into the air, her jaw held painfully tight in her hands.  
  
“Miss Vallière!”

She could _smell_ it. The burning of meat.

There was heat, and pain. Why was it so hot? It hadn’t felt hot.

What was going on? She didn’t want to die.

Was she going to– ?

Colbert ran over to her and his arms were soon over her, pulling her up and away. Each step her took, from what little she could see, was taken around the creature, to stay away from it.

Louise was on her feet, but she couldn’t feel herself walking. Her body moved on its own accord, deciding what was best before she could even consider it.

“Master De Gramont, Miss Zerbst!” Colbert turned back to the students, but not before Louise caught another glimpse of the brass familiar wedged into the earth. It stared at her as its little arms continued to spasm back and forth in her direction. “Take Miss Vallière to the infirmary. Now!"

Guiche and Kirche nodded in utter panic, running to her aid and taking the place around her where Colbert once had. They whispered assurance and comforts that they never had before and likely never would again.

Then a gurgling screech pierced the air, almost identical to the sound the familiar had made when it first appeared. But now it was so much worse; it was almost unholy. Like a demon utterly lost in pain.

Despite her own injury, Louise peered past her tears to the creature she'd summoned. Two bulbs shined at the top of its head, flickering with the ever-changing pitch of its scream.

Then came the dull thud of bending metal. The dents and caved-in portions of the body began to repair themselves. The dirt seemed to burn from existence and with it a sheen came back to the bronze and gold.

Even the blue it its eye seemed to grow brighter the louder it screamed.

**“WHAT... IS... HAPPENING?!"**

She had heard it speak, but for the life of her Louise couldn't understand the words it was saying. They sounded so alien and unreal.

She wasn't even sure if it had spoken real words at all.

And then the screaming stopped all at once. The body was new and clean, the metal seemed polished, and the brass orbs now appeared like glittering gold in the midday sun. Whatever the creature was, it was new and healed.

The familiar then sharply turned its eye. The dome at the head spun on its axis and the creature looked to its new master. Louise took a nervous step back as Guiche and Kirche followed in her example. Then she suddenly didn't feel like standing at all. Even the slightest breeze stabbed at her mouth, and her stomach curdled at the taste of blood seeping onto her tongue.

“ _Please_ go to the infirmary, Miss Vallière!” Colbert reinstated. “You're in need of urgent medical care.”

She couldn't even reply. It hurt to move her lips at all, let alone force herself to speak. Colbert seemed to know what she wanted to say, however.

“I will see that your familiar is kept safe. Now, please, go and get yourself seen to.”

Louise couldn't find much in herself to argue, so she didn't. She didn't even know if she could feel her lips any more. Guiche took her left arm as Kirche fumbled with her right as they pulled away from the grounds.

They didn't get far.

**“YOU WILL NOT MOVE!”**

The distinct sound of her familiar rang out again, and the next thing Louise knew there was a blinding flash of green. She felt a brief rush of air before her back slammed Kirche and then the grass beneath. Her body grew numb and her eyes felt heavy.

More screaming was reaching her ears, though now she couldn't understand who it was, or how many there were. It could have been her, she thought.

All she knew was the sound of screaming.

The courtyard was a blurred mess behind her tears. The last thing she was able to make out was the brown form of her familiar easing its way into the air before coming back down to the ground.

Then there was only black.

***

**"SYSTEM RESTORATION IS NOT YET SUFFICIENT!"**

The creature ignored the students fleeing the grounds as it stared down at its arms.

**"MY WEAPONRY IS IMPAIRED!"**

Colbert couldn't believe it had escalated so quickly. A familiar had never gone this rogue before. There had been skirmishes and minor assaults, as there was bound to be with the summoning of wyverns, the demonic and other dangerous creatures.

But never anything like this.

Pushing the thoughts to the very back of his mind, Colbert thrust his staff in the air. Fire launched from the peak and shot out towards the familiar, but never at it. The grass at its base caught fire in a wide circle.

"Get to the castle!" he called out. The students had nothing to say against the order. Most had already begun to move of their own accord. "Get inside, quickly!"

The fire surrounding the monster seemed to have no effect. The creature merely swivelled its head back towards Louise and got on its way. It moved free of the flames and began gliding towards her, passing by the slumped bodies of her classmates.

The professor prayed to the Founder and all beyond that they were all merely unconscious.

He shot another hail of fire at the creature, this time aimed directly at the dome. "Stop right there!" The attack hit its target. The embers seemed to harmlessly roll off the metal. "You will not harm them!"

This time it stopped and turned to face the teacher. The blue light sparkled beneath the red roaring fire still searing into the grass.

"YOUR LANGUAGE IS PRIMITIVE. COMPARABLE TO EARTH FRENCH. EFFORTLESSLY TRANSLATABLE. "

Those were the first words from the creature that he understood, yet Colbert couldn't get past the voice behind them.

It was like screaming.

"You will stop this madness at once! Or force will be used against you.” The familiar blankly stared back at the professor. It didn't so much as acknowledge the statement. “Do you understand me?”

It still didn't move, but its eye began to twitch up and down. It took in every inch of the teacher's form, peering through the flames that continued to spread around it.

**“YOU REGISTER AS SUPERIOR.”**

Colbert wasn't sure how to reply, so “What?” was all he managed.

 **“MY DATA ARCHIVES HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED!”** It was as if the creature spat the words, despite them sounding no different than before. As if they were a sickness. **“YOU REGISTER AS SUPERIOR. _EXPLAIN!_ ”**

It moved forward, and Colbert didn't resist the primal urge to take a step back.

**_“EXPLAIN!”_ **

He still didn't know what to say. Some of the words registered but their meanings did not. Data? Archives? Corruption? Was it a metaphor or code of some sort?

“I'm not sure what you mean,” he said. His steps stopped as he raised his staff again. “But if you attempt another attack on anyone there will be repercussions.”

There were members of staff at the academy capable of taking down a creature ten times the size of the familiar. Even some of the students would have held a good chance at taking it down.

But the creature seemingly didn't care about any such repercussions.

**“YOU WILL EXPLAIN YOUR SUPERIORITY!”**

Another blast of magic was fired from the creature. It burned into the grass and charred remains were left on the ground. The attack destroyed the greenery far faster than any magical fire Colbert knew.

It had evaporated the very earth itself. And at such close range, Colbert saw the attack for what it really was.

It was a warning.

 **“MY WEAPONS HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED AND PRIMED; THEY WILL NOT FAIL A SECOND TIME**!” Colbert didn't doubt that. **“YOU WILL EXPLAIN YOUR SUPERIORITY! OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!”**

For the first time in a while, Jeane Colbert found himself fumbling for words. It wasn't so much that he couldn't get them out, it was just that he had no real idea of what the creature wanted to hear. It was violent and intent on physical harm.

But it was clearly intelligent; couldn't it have requested an audience or spoke rationally?

Suppositions would not save him now, however. Colbert went over the facts.

“You have been summoned here as a familiar,” Colbert said, resolute. He motioned towards Louise. “A creature destined to serve Miss Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. She is your Master, and I am her Teacher. There is your chain of command.”

Once again, there was no visual response to speak of. The familiar didn't exactly have the emotional cues another may have had. No eyes to focus on nor any quirks to second guess at.

It just stared.

 **“THE FEMALE IS _HUMAN!_ ”** it screeched. **“NO HUMAN HOLDS COMMAND OVER A DALEK!”**

“And is that what you are?” another voice asked. “A Dalek?”

Colbert turned to see Osmond stood behind him, along with a good portion of the faculty. All of them had their wands out and staves in the air, aimed directly at the hellish golem.

All except for Osmond. He stood with his staff held loosely in his hand. Comfortably.

The Dalek stared into the crowd. The eyestalk looked to each of them in quick succession. **"DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME RACE. HUMANS ARE AN INFERIOR SPECIES!"** It moved forward again, raising its wand. Screeching at them. **"WHY DO ALL OF YOU REGISTER AS SUPERIOR?!"**

"Tell me, Dalek." Osmond spoke calmly. "What does Miss Vallière 'register' as?"

The Dalek paused. It came to a halt above the scorched Earth it had created. The dome and eye turned to the body slumped gracelessly on the dirt.

It scanned her.

After a lengthy pause the Dalek eventually spoke. It seemed to struggle.

**"THE FEMALE REGISTERS AS COMMANDER."**

Not quite the word Colbert had expected to hear, but he supposed it meant the same thing in the end.

Master.

"In that case, is it not worth your time for us to help her? To help your commander?" Osmond said. "I dare say she is in need of medical assistance."

The Dalek didn't reply. It looked over to its master as the staff of the school stood in silence, waiting. Wondering. Though it almost seemed that the Dalek was waiting for something too.

Colbert wondered if it was worth moving towards the students himself. He took a cautious step in their direction.

The Dalek turned back towards him.

It just stared, the little blue light varying from broad to a pinpoint inside the stalk.  
  
Without even words or a face to convey such emotions, the adjustment of the eye gave the professor the inclination that his 'superiority' to the creature was all that kept him standing.  
  
**"I AM A SOLDIER! I..."** it struggled, **"I MUST OBEY MY SUPERIOR OFFICERS."**

It also seemed, to Colbert, that if that superiority ceased, there wouldn't much left to protect him. Or anyone, for that matter.

"Then you will obey me," he eventually said, resolute. "Your commander is injured. You will allow us to give her treatment, and you will watch over her until she awakens." He left out that there'd be consequences if the students didn't. If Louise died, so did the contract. And all possible immunity. "And you will _not_ harm a single person on these grounds. Do I make myself clear?"

Once again, the Dalek did not answer. The arm, the one that seemed to house the wand, strayed towards Colbert. The eye-stalk twitched up and down, fixed on him.

"Do I make myself clear?" Colbert repeated.

Another long pause followed. Without a word of confirmation, the Dalek slid slowly to the side. It didn't move when the staff ran to the students' aid. It didn't move when their limp bodies were carried off to the infirmary.

But the familiar never took its single eye off Colbert. And only when everyone had gone did it bother following the crowd to where its master had been taken.

***

Upon opening her eyes, Louise considered that it probably wasn't quite time to get up yet.

She blinked away the achy tiredness that seemed to encompass her body and was met with a calm darkness. The whisperings of the fauna existed outside the stone walls of the castle and the faint footsteps of people throughout the halls were the only sounds that broke through the night.

It was only then that Louise realised she was not in her own room. The blank infirmary walls didn't have the stylistic appeal of the student bedrooms.

The infirmary…

Louise sat up, suddenly sober to her situation. The bed creaked under her shift in weight and her hands reached up to her face. Instead of skin, her fingers met a rough fabric wound tightly around her cheeks. She could feel something cool and hard behind it, wedged between her lips and teeth.

They felt hot, horrible and itchy.

Her eyes widened as she finally took in everything that had happened during the ceremony. On impulse, she twisted her neck around the room, worried that the creature that attacked her would somehow have found itself nearby.

It had.

In the far corner of the room, a single blue light was striking through the darkness. Looking directly at her.

She almost managed a scream, but her lips stung at the sudden movement. All that escaped her mouth was a short-lived squeak through the bandages.

As Louise forced herself back into her pillow she felt another pain burn at her stomach. She frantically lifted the covers and pulled aside the thin white robes she now found herself in. There was more gauze wrapped around a large area above her waist, redness and irritation thinly hidden behind them.

Before anything else could surprise the little mage, the door to the infirmary opened and Old Man Osmond made his way inside. His brow quickly rose when he caught sight of her.

"Ah, Miss Vallière," he said, "I must say, it is nice to see you awake. You had us worried for a while there."

He made his way over to the bed. The door was left open and light flooded over the bare floor and walls until a faint glow took over the darkness.

"I understand you are likely tired, so I shall be brief." He sat down on the bumpy mattress. "I'm afraid you have been out of action for a little over two days. I should also inform you that you sustained severe burns to your mouth and stomach. I am assured the injuries and pain they cause will be healed by tomorrow morning, but only time will tell if scars are left behind."

Louise could only listen. She didn't even know she felt so drained until it had been pointed out to her.

That, and the state of her mouth hardly allowed for proper conversation.

A brief whirring caught her off guard. Louise turned back to see the metal creature, her familiar, looking her up and down.

“The exact cause of your sleep escapes us, though we can make some... logical guesses.” He looked to the creature, not bothering to hide his displeasure. “But based on what we do know, you shall go on to make a full recovery. Your current condition strengthens that diagnosis.”

The creature whirred again, moving its eye to face Osmond. He looked away.

"I'm sure you have many more questions, but I also believe you should leave such things until morning. Conversing might come easier when we are both awake and able to speak," he weakly chuckled. “And I do apologise for leaving you alone just now. I had to see to a couple of your classmates. I do hope it did not distress you too much.”

Louise kept her eyes focused on the familiar as she nodded. Osmond tilted his neck to look with her as the creature stared right back, silent in the retreating darkness.  
  
"You might also like to know your familiar is called a Dalek." Louise looked to Osmond.

Dalek.

_Dalek._

The word gave Louise the fear of death.

Osmond continued. "I think it is also important that you know that not every familiar shares an immediate bond with their master. Some relationships take time to blossom. Familiars are no different."

The Dalek stared on. Osmond responded with a smile.

"I bid you both a good night. You have been exempted from class for the time being, as have Miss Kirche and Master De Gramont. As I just said, I’ve been to see them. Their recovery gives us hope that yours will be just as swift."

With a nod and a wave, Osmond left the infirmary for the evening. Louise waved back, even if his visit left a lot of questions unanswered.

She turned nervously to her Dalek. It was still in the corner. The girl attempted a meek wave.

If the creature acknowledged the gesture, it didn't show it.

Without much else left open to her, Louise left the bed she woke in and moved for the infirmary door. She looked to her familiar, a slight longing in her eyes, but when it didn't follow in her footsteps she simply left the door open.

The Dalek didn't follow. Not until she was asleep.

***

Louise sat at the edge of her bed, holding a cold palm to her face. She held a mirror in the other, and despite herself, she couldn't pull her eyes away from the reflection.

She never considered herself much to look at, but even if she had, it wouldn't be so true anymore. Her lips, once almost as pale as her skin, were now red and dirtied over with scarred tissue. The edges of her lips were almost black as charcoal and, rather morbidly, she assumed they must have smelled as such not too long ago.

She couldn’t quite remember, either way.

Her stomach had not fared much better. While the scarring was not as harsh, it still left a bloodied patch against her formerly pristine skin. It spread from just above her waist and around her right side towards her back.

Disgusted as she was, or saddened, (she couldn't tell which) she still looked into the mirror with her mouth held open. Words attempted to come out, but there wasn't anyone around to hear her. The nurse left soon after the bandages had been removed.

The nurse had left because her familiar had kept staring at her; the woman made very little in the way of excuses on her way to leave. And it was still staring at Louise.

She stared back.

“What?” she spat. It could talk, so it must have understood her. “Are you ever going to say anything to me?”

It didn't answer.

“Of course not...”

Louise let her arms go limp and the mirror fell to the floor. Tears threatened to swell from her eyes, and yet again Louise considered how little she'd managed to get right. Her familiar had been reluctant to appear in the first place and then it had scarred her, possibly for life. It had attacked her and two other students. Trust her, Louise the Zero, to summon the only familiar that actually tried to kill its master.

Instead of thinking about her situation, she just let her emotions take hold. The little witch fell back onto her mattress and held a pillow tight to her face. Her wails and screams didn't go beyond the fabric, though her tears dried against the linen surface.

Then out of the blue, she heard a garbled noise. One she recognised. Louise pulled the pillow away, looking across her bed.

Her face made it clear she had not heard whatever noise her familiar had chosen that particular moment to say.

 **“ORDERS,”** she heard again, clearer.

It took her a moment to understand. She sniffled. “What?”

**“YOU ARE MY SUPERIOR. YOU MUST GIVE ME ORDERS.”**

And she could understand the words, even if they did sounds coarse to her ears.

“That's it?” she asked, scoffing. “You just obey me now? You speak my language?”

She wasn't even sure why she was so angry. The Dalek wanted to obey her now, despite it all. It could speak too, which was a sure lot more than Kirche's familiar could manage. That blasted salamander couldn't take out three people with one hit either.

Perhaps it could, but not as easily.

But the creature didn't answer her question. Its eye twitched, and the arms at its centre motioned back and forth between herself and empty space. And that just irritated her more.

“Do you even care that you hurt me? You could have warned me; you were speaking _just_ now! You must have known touching you would hurt.”

It just whirred again, impassively.

“And then you just...” She thought to herself. “I don't even _know_ what you did to me. Do you even care that you left me unconscious for days?”

Once again, her familiar just looked her up and down without replying. The only thing she could count as exceptional was her talking familiar, and even that didn't do as it was meant to.

“You know what? Fine.” Louise just wanted to be alone. If she couldn't wallow in her own little ball of self-pity, what else could she do? “Just leave me alone. There's your order." Her throat cracked. "Go outside and leave me alone...”

Barely a moment passed before the Dalek whirred itself towards Louise's door, and after that it was gone. It didn't occur to her think about how it could have opened her bedroom door, or how it was going to get down the stairs to the courtyard. Or how it had gotten up them in the first place.

It was gone, and she could be on her own. It settled her. If only because it was the one thing she was already used to.

***

The rim of the mirror began to glow brighter. Script and symbols spread across the surface of the glass like fire, burning bright and blue. The reflection seemed to vanish into a flash of pure white until everything settled back into its former state.

“Once the spell has been completed, this mirror will be charmed for one use,” Miss Chevreux explained with a smile. “If a living creature stands in front of the glass, it will show their worst fear instead of their own reflection. It even works on animals.”

The quiet murmur of the class carried on after the teacher had finished until she decided enough time had passed. She cleared her throat and silence soon overcame the students.

“Now, each of you will perform the charm on the mirror in turn. Given the difficult nature of the spell, I don't expect all of you to cast it successfully. However,” she added, “if it comes to it, I will happily recast the charm myself to allow you the chance to experience the effects.”

Louise wasn't sure if the reassurance was for her own benefit, or if the spell was truly as hard as her teacher let on. Regardless, she had been looking forward to this class. A good deal of the students had been, actually.

The Malice Mirror was nothing much more than a novelty, if it could be called that. Spare for scaring an individual, it had no other benefits. The fear itself always stayed behind the glass, and there were no lasting effects from being near the charm.

Unless your fear was truly that bad, Louise supposed.

The mirror Miss Chevreux had used was a simple one. It stood upright, taller than even Kirche, with a gilded rim and stand holding it in place. Whilst a smaller mirror could be used, but it was likely a taller one was used to make the experience more interactive.

Besides, it would be interesting to see what her classmates were afraid off. She didn't want to make the event petty, but it would be a breath of fresh air for her classmates to bicker about each other rather than herself.

Perhaps she could even find some sort of dirt on Kirche.

A quiet whirring sounded out amidst the commotion of the class. Everyone else forced their eyes to the front of the class, but Louise took a gander over at her familiar. The Dalek was as focused on her teacher as the rest of the class were pretending to be.

Though, she supposed, it was only there to learn. It seemingly didn't care that it wasn't addressed or spoken to during the class. It just observed the information, recording it inside its infinitely large mind.

In the past few months her Dalek had combed the entire collection of books in the library, as well as the storage of spare works situated throughout the castle. And it remembered every single word from every single page from every single book it had ever read

Frankly, it was amazing. It spoke every language she could think off. It spoke to Kirche in her native tongue when dealing with her directly and seemed to the same with everyone else. It said it could tell by accent alone where the person had lived most of their lives.

Colbert had taken to talking to it in his spare time, though the Dalek rarely spoke back unless Louise told it too. It was still less than social. Barely social, in fact. Unless ordered to by Louise, it didn't try to speak to anyone.

Of course, she had ordered it to be more social, which the Dalek had indeed tried. There had been little effort in its actions, but it had spoken to staff and students on her behalf on various occasions. It was getting better, she supposed.

Though its violent nature was something else entirely. It took far too little time to decide on violence as an answer to everything. Ordering it to use less violence hadn't even worked all that well.

It just seemed… lost when destruction or pure logic wasn't the initial answer.

But, if nothing else, it proved to be a rather interesting familiar.

Coming back to the class at hand, however, Louise watched as Malicorn was called to perform the spell first. After a few moments of struggle and an entirely failed attempt, he recreated the spell that their teacher had done. The same effect and visual stimuli overcame the mirror before it settled down.

He was then instructed, if he wanted, to wander in front of the mirror. “I remind all of you that, should you feel the need, you can refuse to view the mirror. We are all allowed secrets, after all.”

But Malicorn nodded and moved in front of the mirror anyway.

The moment he did, his body froze. Louise was behind and above him, but even she could see the image in the mirror in front of him. Unlike what their teacher had implied, Malicorn was indeed in the mirror, but he was waist deep in dirt. It was pouring continuously from above the reflection, slowly burying him beneath the mass.

His body relaxed when he seemed to realise it was all an illusion. It seemed to settle him knowing it wasn't actually him in the reflection.

“A rather darker image than I had predicted...” their teacher said, quietly. She watched as her student still stood in view of the mirror, watching himself being buried in an infinite pile of dirt. A never-ending blackness spread behind the boy in the glass. “But well done for a successful spell and, quite literally, facing your fear.”

She began to clap and the rest of the class did the same. The boy blushed ever so slightly before returning to his seat. He seemed less shaken than Louise would have suspected.

“As you can see, the image can be rather literal. But I'm hoping that, with the number you there are, we will see a good variation of what can be shown. And I must remind all of you that nothing you see is real.”

Another student wandered down and completed the spell. She was successful first time and, after moving in front of the glass, watched a python appear. A massive snake, taking up the entirety of the reflected classroom. The mouth could easily have swallowed a grown-man whole.

Miss Chevreux began clapping, once again ushering the same act from the rest of the students. The girl nodded before turning away. The snake vanished from view at the exact same moment.

More students went by, called up by their teacher. Much to Louise's own relief, not everyone could actually cast the charm. There were also a few who refused to view their fear for whatever reason they believed appropriate.

But among those who did, the images in the mirror ranged from the mundane to the strange. One boy saw the classroom dowsed in endless, burning flames and the charred, melted forms of his classmates struggling within. Another simply saw a swarm of small, long legged insects flying around the room, and a girl saw a man dressed in colourful clothes and disfigured make up, much like a harlequin.

Louise's Dalek watched each and every one of them. As if it was storing the experiences it saw away for later use.

For all she knew, it was.

Kirche also took her turn, casting the spell with ease after an initial mistake. When she wandered to the mirror, rather more confidently than everyone else, she jumped back at the sound of a shrill, inhuman scream.

From with the reflection there wasn't the classroom, but a bedroom. Night time could be seen from beyond a rather elaborate window frame. A distorted blackness was crawling along the walls and ceiling, scuttling from one corner to the other. And then, once, over the glass of the mirror.

The creature was the one screaming. The sound grated at Louise's ears.

Much to Louise's surprise, Kirche readily admitted she used to have nightmares about a monster when she was child but said she hadn't had those dreams for years. Whether that was true or not, Louise was both annoyed and rather scared that Kirche had a less mundane fear that could be used against her.

Then it was Louise's turn. “If you could come down, Miss Vallière.”

And she did. The little mage wandered down from her seat as she saw a few of her classmates preparing for what could be another explosion. Her familiar watched her, just like it had watched all the others. Though it showed no more or less interest than it had before. Just the same, stoic stare with nothing behind it.

Louise's hand clenched tight around her wand. Her palms were sweaty, and she was sure she was close to shaking. But it didn't matter, because was going to give it her all. And it wasn't like she was the only one who didn't cast the charm if she failed.

She stood just left of the mirror and chanted the incantation. Her eyes were closed in fear of actually destroying something. When her words were finished, and there was still no explosion, she dared to open her eyes.

She'd done it.

There wasn't any rubble or smoke.

Anywhere!

Miss Chevreux was smiling with, what was most likely, relief written all over her face. Louise's classmates seemed in much the same situation. Even Kirche seemed to be unable to form one of her usual insults.

It said a lot about her state as a mage if a successful spell brought forth this much shock and awe from her peers.

Regardless, Louise took it in her stride and moved over to the mirror. She'd cast the spell first time; she wasn't going to ruin it by declining to look into the mirror.

However, there wasn't any grand spectacle behind the glass, or a monster of any sort. There was just a hazy mist. Any sort of location was hidden behind a thick, opaque fog. And sat in the centre of the mirror was Louise.

She was sat on the floor, her legs held against her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her clothes weren't even her school uniform; she was wearing common clothes. Brown, drab pieces of cloth that tried their best to look like a dress. Her legs were bare and her feet were bereft of shoes.

Louise couldn't help but notice there wasn't any sort of sound from the rest of the class. Once again, even Kirche remained quiet. In the end, Louise turned her head away from the mirror, and the image vanished soon after. In her heart, she knew what the image meant.

Even if the others didn't, she did.

Her teacher began to clap in order to fill in the silence, and everyone else did the same. A few clapped longer than they had for the other, and Louise felt rather proud of what she'd achieved, if not a little embarrassed her inner fears were briefly seen by the rest of her class.

At least it was vague enough that she could turn it into something else if she wanted, unlike a giant spider or an image her own mother. She'd actually assumed she would see something close to the latter.

Tabitha went after. The charm was cast without so much as a single care before she refused wandering in front of the mirror and promptly returned to her seat. Miss Chevreux stared at the girl for a few moments before realising she was finished with her turn. It had all gone by in little under ten seconds.

She briefly looked at the charmed mirror. It occurred to Louise that everyone had cast the spell at least once.

“Would anyone who declined to look like another chance now that we're finished?” She offered, peering around the room. “It appears we have a charm left to use.”

Those who had declined seemed even less eager than before. After some of the visions, Louise couldn't really blame them. Hers was particularly personal, so there wasn't much she could say if theirs was equally so.

But then–

**“I DEMAND ACCESS.”**

The entire populous of the room turned to face the Dalek, still sat next to the door. Its eye stalk was aimed at their teacher, though no longer to merely observe.

“E-excuse me?” Chevreux squeaked.

 **“I DEMAND ACCESS TO THE AUGMENTED ARTIFACT,”** it stated, each word a scream to Louise's ears. The voice it had, the screech, was still something she was finding hard to become accustomed to.

As if to affirm the statement, the Dalek moved across the floor towards the mirror. Miss Chevreux could only nod in response and wait for the spell to run its course.

Louise found herself leaning forward, eager to see what the reflection would hold. The thought hadn't really occurred to her before. The Dalek never displayed a difference in emotions. Happiness, sadness and love all seemed to disperse away behind the anger it constantly portrayed.

Fear hadn't crossed her mind at all.

Her classmates seemed to have the same idea. Each of them was looking down to the mirror, more interested than any one of the people before the Dalek. Their teacher had even moved back slightly, giving herself a better view of the reflective glass.

Turning its body to face the mirror, the unnatural joints whirring in the process, the class watched as a landscape finally appeared.

Broken towers stretching up into the blackness of a dying horizon. Smoke bled from bronzed circles that littered the landscape as lightning crackled from within the vapour. Fires raged as far back as the eye could see, the embers spreading across the dry ground. Laying across the ground were thousands of graves; destroyed and blackened husks that could once have been described as a Dalek.

Then, out of the smoke and fire came a figure.

An old man, holding his body up with a cane. Scraggly white hair and a black coat. Faded tartan trousers.

And as he grew closer, Louise could make out the murderous smile that split open his face.

Then another man came out from behind, this time a shorter, clownish man with a fop of black hair. His smile was just as horrid.

More came, each with their own disgusting smiles and their own varying states of fashion. One had a scarf stretching down to his feet while another had a patchwork coat made from the gaudiest material.

Yet, through it all the Dalek stayed in front of the mirror. It watched with everyone else as the men gathered in front of the destruction. Each of them was smiling, looking down at the Dalek through the mirror.

Then a final figure appeared.

Another old man with a small beard and a brown, leather jacket.

This time the Dalek hovered back suddenly, but slightly. The eye-stalk stared through the glass at the figure. He stood at the forefront of the group, ahead of them. In his hand was a staff of sorts, held casually at his side.

But then he held it high in the air, a trophy. It was then Louise saw that it wasn't a staff; it was the stalk of her Dalek. Its eye.

“No more...” the man said.

The Dalek kept staring into the image, its eye twitching up and down. But Louise could see it was focused on the stalk in the man's hand.

“No more!” he said again, joined by the others in unison. The thunder in the background intensified, lighting burning into the structures below.

“No more!”

Screeching could be heard in the background. The gurgling screams of the Dalek voice grew louder as explosions began overpowering the world. The sky… shifted. Bent like metal if metal stained by the sky could be torn.

“No! More!”

Liquid fire erupted into the sky. The black clouds illuminated by continuous cracks of lightening and the flames roaring from down below. More of the bronze disks fell from the sky, tearing into the earth and adding to the growing inferno.

Towers fell.

Daleks burst from a pressure unseen.

Things drifted through the sky that both had horrifying teeth but no teeth at all.

“No more!”

Louise sat silent with her class as the world within the mirror degenerated into nothing less than a vision of Hell. The screaming of the Dalek voices, true screaming, scratched at her ears as the world in front of her burned.

“No More!”

Chevreux looked like she wanted to pull the Dalek away. Whether out of pity or fear, Louise didn't know, but she wanted the same. Her familiar wasn't turning away, so the dying world stayed, consumed by hell-fire.

The nine men stared through the fire, unhurt by the heat or the carnage occurring all around them. Each of them looked through the mirror. Not into the world, but to the Dalek itself. Each of them with malice in their eyes and that same, disgusting smile.

They all had the exact same smile now. Identical.

“No!” they began, “Mo-” but they never finished. Before they could finish the mirror shattered in a flash of bright, intense light.

The Dalek's weapon fired.

Shards of broken glass spread across the room in a violent flurry as the thunderous screams and the men died down, their world gone. Louise covered her eyes, feeling the prick of glass against her skin.

When she looked back, the mirror was completely absent. All that remained were pieces of reflection and charred chunks of gold. A scorch mark was seared into the surface of the wooden floor.

The Dalek glared down at the mark.

 **“EX-TER-MIN-ATE,”** was all it said. It moved back towards the door and, perhaps copying the students, reclaimed its position on the floor. It's gaze once again lingered on the teacher, as if it hadn't moved from the spot at all.

The teacher, however, had nothing else to say. Her mouth tried to form some words, perhaps even respond to what had just occurred, but it didn't. In the end, she allowed the class to leave. Many took her up on that offer quicker than others as she quietly asked Louise to come talk to her.

Kirche threw the smaller girl a sly smile as she left with Tabitha. It was the same smile that usually arose when Louise herself had caused an explosion.

“I'll start cleaning up the mess,” Louise sighed, remembering what her usual reply to destruction was.

She was met with a quick shake of the head, “You told me, _quite clearly_ , that your familiar was safe to have inside my classroom.”

“I thought it was.”

“Well, the shards of glass embedded in the back wall beg to differ. It was an utter _miracle_ no one was hurt.”

Louise had to give her that. It was rather lucky.

“I... didn't really expect the Dalek to use the mirror,” which she didn't. “I hadn't really considered it being scared of anything.”

“Miss Vallière,” she began, but stopped as she caught sight of the Dalek. It was still sat there. Louise noticed and realised what her teacher was thinking.

“Go to the courtyard until I am done here, Dalek. Harm nothing and no one in my absence.”

 **“I OBEY!”** the Dalek replied immediately, swivelling on the spot. It silently left the room. Louise had found, through trial and error, that talking to the thing as if it were a soldier in her command made it more likely to follow her orders as she wanted.

Compassion and sarcasm were completely, utterly lost on it.

Miss Chevreux continued.

“Miss Vallière, you must understand that I cannot have something like... like that in my classroom if it is going to endanger my students.”

“But it hasn't done anything in here since-”

“And I accept that it has behaved since I allowed it to sit in on your classes. However, today has proven that, not only is it a danger, but it is also psychologically unstable on several levels.”

Louise stayed quiet, allowing her teacher to speak.

“I understand that it is intelligent, and that has a desire to witness what I teach, but I cannot put the curiosity of your familiar above the safety of the students in my care. I have enough trouble dealing with your spells on a daily basis, let alone a creature that can kill with very little effort. Today's incident has proven that it will use force if threatened, even if you command it otherwise. I have no idea what the mirror showed us, bit it clearly caused something to stir in your familiar, and if it happens again then real people might be killed as a result.”

A few seconds passed. Louise wasn't quite sure how to respond.

“I'm going to report what happened today to Headmaster Osmond. He will decide what part, if any, your familiar will play in future classes.”

It didn't actually matter to Louise if the Dalek was allowed to sit in on future classes. The creature would find some way to learn the facts regardless, and as far as she could tell nothing made it sad. Or happy. It made no real difference.

So why did she feel like she'd let it down?

“I would also recommend finding out who those men were. Discovering its worst fear may avoid more situations like this happening again. It may go a long way with helping it get more freedom in the future.”

And with that, Louise was allowed to leave. Cleaning up was apparently not her responsibility this time, so she left for the courtyard.

Her loyal familiar was waiting for her.


	2. Manuel la Mascota

**Manuel la Mascota**   
_Manuel ‘Manny’ Calavera, Grim Fandango  
_

“Don't suppose you have any mail for me today?”

“Do I ever have any mail for you, Manny?”

I suppose not, though she still gets that lingerie catalogue every now and then. I could unsubscribe to their offer but then I wouldn't have anything to put on my desk.

Eva’s right though, there’s never really has much that's actually for me. The only messages that are meant for me come from Don, and it's usually something I don't want to hear. I guess that must come with being the boss' whipping boy.

“At least that means I'm off for the night,” I say, which is true. I don't have anywhere better to go though. “Fancy going for some drinks? My treat.”

“As flattered as I am, I have places I need to be tonight. A friend of mine needs some help with a project he's got going on.”

“Is this the mystery friend I'm not allowed to meet?”

“Yes, it is,” she replies. She laughs a little like she always does when I ask that question. I'm pretty sure she likes the guy. About sixty percent sure. “Not that I have anything against you. He just isn't the kinda guy you would go out and have drinks with.”

“That breaks my heart.”

“You don't have a heart.”

That's also true; being a skeleton does that to a person. “Doesn't mean I don't miss having a drinking buddy.”

After that I just wave her goodbye and walk down the hall to my office. Eva's a good friend, but I've been here long enough to know that you don't complain when you get some extra time off from work.

Though I haven't exactly got much else to do with my time around here.

I open my office door and wander over to desk. The Department of Death requires me to wear a black cloak when I reap those who have passed on. The recently departed are apparently less likely to come with me if I'm just wearing my old blue suit and battered brown shoes.

Not sure I can really argue with that kind of logic.

But then again, not everyone takes death the same way. That’s not my place, I suppose. I just do my job and sell those who have passed on the best travel package to the next life that I can.

Our job title may say Reaper, but it's just a fancy term for travel agent.

“If only my clients were any good.”

You'd think I'd get a few saints or nuns coming my way every now and then, but nothing. Nada. The most I can sell my clients are walking sticks or zimmer-frames. Maybe a new pair of shoes. Nothing that’ll make me the big commission.

And no commission means no paying my dues to the Powers That Be.

I stare into the files resting on top. I got through eleven souls today, and none of them qualified for anything good. Looking back on it, I haven't had any good souls for a while.

Maybe the Land of the Living is in a worse shape than when I left it. It wouldn't surprise me; they do a lot of weird stuff up there.

Sitting down in my chair, I hop off my stilts and kick them to the floor. I'm apparently also too short to represent the imposing figure that Death requires. I can't say I disagree with that view either, but it would be easier if I could just work without them.

“I kind of like the robe though,” I mean, they do say black is very slimming, even if I can't really get any skinnier. At least I haven't got a fat bone in my belly like Don Copal. Those don't do anyone any favours.

The breast bones aren't too shabby though.

I spin around in my chair a few times before letting it face the window. The sun is setting over El Marrow, and the souls below are going busier below in this moment than I’ve been all day. They're setting up the Day of the Dead festival across the street.

I've seen so many of them over the years. It would be nice to finally leave it all behind.

“Would it be so much to ask for one good soul to come my way?”

I spin my chair back towards the door to face to my locker, but something else is there now. It's green and glowing. Kind of shaped like a circle and not all that much taller than the door behind it, which is a few heads taller than me without the stilts.

I can't really think of much else to say about it. And it’s just floating there, in the middle of the air like it's nobody's business. I know we're in the Land of the Dead, but physics should still putting in the hours around here.

For the most part, anyway.

And... it’s strange. I look at it, this new thing that wasn’t in my office only second before and I have no fear of it. No insecurities or trepidation. I’m… comforted by it? At ease that it’s here?

I'm not all that sure.

I haven't seen anything so pleasantly green for a such long time. Green is a symbol for the living, even if they believe it to represent sickness and greed. We see it as the colour of nature, the living and everything we are not. That which can rise anew from us.

An image of death for the dead.

_I beg of you…_

I leave my stiltz under my desk as I stumble across the floor. My feet catch on the bottom of my robe, but I can’t find the time to care. I should probably take it off.  
  
_My slave who lives somewhere in the universe!_

I leave it on though, it seems like too much effort to remove. Like there’s not enough time. I can feel a faint breeze, and a smell I'm not quite sure I recognise. It's... nostalgic, despite having no root in a real memory.

_Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!_

But at the same time, it isn't. It’s fresh, it’s new. It’s the Spring and Summer to Autumn we have in this place.

Whatever it is, it kind of hurts my nose, actually.

_I desire and here I plead from my heart!_

I just stand there and look at it. I honestly don't know what else to do. I could probably touch it or poke it with something, but it doesn't seem right. It's like I already know what it's for, and why it's here.

I don't really, but it sure feels like it. It's like there's this voice inside my head. A nice voice too.

_Answer to my guidance!_

I move back to my desk, grab a marker and the file with my clients inside. I write on the back in big letters and leave it where someone will find it. My hand shifts towards my chest, and when I feel my scythe in the space where my heart used to be, I take my final steps towards the green void. The next thing I know there's dust and dirt scratching at the insides of my eye sockets.

_Eva,_

_I've gone somewhere else for a while. I'm not sure where it is, when I'll be back or if I ever will be back, but I have a good feeling about it. If I'm not back for work in a week, tell Don he can have his supply closet back._

_Adiós mi amiga,_

_Manny_   
  


  
***  
  


  
“I can do this...”

Louise told herself over and over want she wanted to hear, even if she didn't quite have much of an urge to believe in it. There was that small glimmer of hope, that little whisper in her mind that told her she had plenty to look forward to. It was just unfortunate that the voice calling out her failures was that much louder.

As the little witch wandered away from her classmates, she pushed her wand out before her and began to chant. The summoning ceremony was most important. It gave her whole life a moment in time where she could make a life for herself and start anew.

She had told the others she would summon a dragon, or some other deliriously humongous and magnificent beast. Something that would make even Kirche jealous.

“I beg of you my slave who lives somewhere in the universe!”

But inside, in her own little pink-haired head, she had stopped believing that would actually happen. She said it to everyone else, sure; what else could she do to keep her pride from withering away into nothing. At this point, if she got a rabbit to pull out of a hat, she would be more than happy. Or a dog to stand guard by her side as the world looked down on her.

Something to keep her company, to protect her.

“Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!” she sang, “I desire and here I plead from my heart!”

Maybe even something to make her laugh when everyone else joked about her. Something she could be true friends with.

“Answer to my guidance!”

Her eyes were closed, and her head was held to the side as she cast her spell. If there was going to be another of her usual explosions, she didn't want dirt in her eyes. It seemed for a moment as if nothing would happen at all-

Then everything seemed to happen all at once.

The ground lit up, and a circle drew itself onto the very grass she stood on as runes and archaic glyphs spread around inside. Much like the students before her, the ritual was working, and much to the small mage's delight, her summoning was taking place.

She took a quick step back.

But just as quickly as it had begun, it all seemed to end as the ground erupted into a massive cloud of dirt and grass. The twinkle of green behind it was the only evidence it had gone according to plan at all.

“What kind of summoning spell was _that?!_ ” Kirche called out with her cloak held well over her mouth. She coughed away the dust that got passed.

“At least it was original,” Guiche hacked.

Even though Louise had fallen to the ground, she could still hear them. Despite her tactic, the dust had gotten to her and it hurt to even open her eyes. When she did, there was only more dust for her to see. The green of the portal was gone, as if it hadn't even been there at all.

Though to her surprise, her classmates, and even their professor, there was something moving within the murky cloud.

It was laying on the floor in a crumpled black mass. Images started to flood Louise's mind of what it could be, with the likes of bunnies and cats replaced with wolves or any number of magical creatures. The shifting pile was certainly big enough.

“It worked...” she whispered as she got to her feet.

Out of respect more than anything else, everyone else stood back as they watched the little witch eye her familiar… whatever it was. Part of Louise thought it might have died in the explosion, but the tell-tale signs of life eventually came.

Then it moved some more. It grew taller, and after a brief clicking of metal sounded out in the silence, it stood upright. The shadow of a man greeted Louise, leaving on a scythe as the dust finally cleared in its entirety.

While Louise stood still and motionless, the rest of her peers took another, larger step back at the sight. A dark, drab cloak hung loose from a body until it settled on the grass. A bleached white skull sat on a square set of shoulders under the long cover of a hood.

The head was, oddly enough, square in shape too. Long, tall.

Unnatural.

Louise couldn't move. Part of her was glad she had summoned anything at all, but now the rest screamed at her to run. A skeleton was stood in front of her, derived from some demonic thing. An undead creature was her familiar, and it was just there, holding the scythe firm in its grip.

And staring at her.

For the longest moment no one said anything. Even Professor Colbert, in all his learned wisdom seemingly couldn't find anything to say. Some of the students had stepped out of his vision, and others had simply ran away.

Louise couldn’t think of a reason for why he would try and stop them.

Despite any supposed doubts, his voice was indeed the first ring true in the castle courtyard. Not after much time spent clearing his throat, however. “Miss Vallière... if you would please continue the ritual.”

It took the young girl a moment to grasp what her teacher had asked. She struggled to even vocalise her very grounded opinion. The rest of her class, or what remained of it, stared on just as dazed and silent.

“But, sir, I can't... it's-”

“Your familiar,” Colbert finished, realisation hitting him. A confidence returned to his voice. “No matter how unorthodox it may seem, this is the creature that answered to your call. The undead, in all their various guises, have been summoned before, and I doubt you will be the last to do so.”

He took some steps close to her, nodding towards… _it._ “It is a rare accomplishment indeed, and one that I will congratulate you on. But only once it is officially your family. Now, please continue.”

Louise wasn't sure if the words comforted her or not, even if she _knew_ they should have. She turned back to the familiar she had managed to summon and raised a hand meekly into the air. Waving probably wasn't the best thing she could have done, but to her surprise, the skeleton waved back.

It looked rather confused.

A brief, but sudden click resounded in the ensuing silence as the cloaked figure raised the scythe into the air before it folding it away. The tool vanished behind the cloak and into the torso, out of sight.

Then the skeleton began moving forward.

And to everyone’s astonishment, speak.

It – or he, as the voice certainly sounded male – spoke in a language Louise couldn't understand, and in an accent she didn’t recognise. It was strange. Despite her own fears, and those of her peers, the skeleton was acting... casual. His skull was still and portrayed no emotion, yet she could still feel some underlying sense of awkwardness behind his movements and tone.

This was as good a time as any, she supposed.

“Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers...” she said, stammering as she took her own shaky steps towards the dead man… or monster? She had yet to decide. She found herself in front of him, and barely an inch below his height. “Grant your blessings upon this creature and bind it as my familiar.”

She moved up onto her toes by the tiniest margin and pecked the skeleton on the forehead. It was cool and smooth. And almost immediately, he backed away.

He raised his hands into the air and awkwardly rubbed the back of his skull, once again muttering in the language he spoke.  
  
His incoherent babble of foreign words turned into a coarse scream as he buckled under his own weight and fell to his knees.  
  
Louise took a step back as her familiar wailed and took hold of his right hand. It surprised her to think that, before she had time to wonder how she could even hurt a skeleton, she was worried he had been hurt in the first place.  
  
But his pain subsided, and so did the screaming.

The contract was sealed.  


  
***  
  


  
“Ola mi amigo!”

And there goes another student, fleeing from my presence in what can only be described as unabashed terror. I probably shouldn't enjoy scaring them so much. All I have to do is wave and say something in Spanish and they think I'm putting a curse on them or something.

It's weird, knowing the living can see me. I haven't worn my cloak since I first got here, but they still seem to think of me as a symbol of death. Or maybe my suit is just that scary to them; they don't seem that into modern fashion here.

Then again, it was pretty bad taste in El Marrow too.

“Can you stop that?”

Ah, Louise. Mi amo: my master. Not sure how I feel about being a slave to a witch shorter than me, but it doesn't seem much worse than working under Don. Domino isn't here, so she's got that going for her.

“What?” I reply, “I'm just saying hello. 'Mi amigo' means 'my friend'.” Male from, if you want to be specific.

“It doesn't sound much like a greeting to us."

“I know, it's hilarious.”

I look around the courtyard for yet another hapless victim, but I once again find nobody daring enough to venture into our territory. Louise wanted to come outside in the hopes she could enjoy the nice weather, so I decided the bite the bullet and get used to nature. Since then the students appear to have either spread out around the rest of the courtyard or emptied into the relative safety of the castle.

Nature hasn't been as harsh to me as I thought it would. In the Land of the Dead, nature doesn't have all that much sway. Trees are born drab and grey, and fully bloomed flowers are rarer than anything else I can think of.

I don't even know when I last saw green grass before coming here. Or green _anything._

It’s… fine, though not something I would choose to experience. The crafted walls of the castle and the shelter it provides from all the pollen and greenery suit me more. I wouldn't call nature unpleasant. Unsuited to me, perhaps, but not unpleasant.

Sitting against the castle and admiring the view certainly isn't too bad - watching the clouds flow by in the gentle afternoon breeze is kind of soothing. Even if the air does smell slightly too spicy.

In the corner of my vision I finally see a darker-skinned woman walking my way. Which is strange, because no one else has really tried since my arrival yesterday. A few wandered passed when I first came outside with Louise, but then I discovered they don't understand Spanish.

A shorter girl is by her side. Whilst the other woman has red hair, this one has blue. It's quite the pretty picture. I think. I'm still getting used to being amongst some Breathers. They all look so creepy. They're all so pudgey. And they jiggle when they move.

“Hello, Louise,” the plump one says. She jiggles more than most of the others. “I thought I'd come visit you and your familiar, seeing as everyone else is avoiding you.”

If not for the sharp tone in her voice, I would almost call that a compliment. Louise doesn't look too pleased to see her either, offering nothing more than a disgruntled hum in response. I guess they don't like each other.

I wiggle my fingers maliciously at the newcomers. “Yo te maldigo!”

I wonder if they can tell when I'm actually trying to curse them or not. Can I actually curse anyone? Is that a thing for skeletons here?

“What's he saying?”

“He's saying hello,” Louise replies. Yeah, she doesn't look to happy to see the red-head. And she obviously doesn't listen to what I'm saying.

“Actually, that time I was trying to curse her."

The woman smiles in response, which is still sort of weird. I haven't seen many smiles yet. Louise just looks frightened or glum most of the time. Or angry.

“Oh, he can speak Halkegenian now. You work fast Louise.” The girl turns to me and her smile wavers slightly. Not much, but I still notice it. “My name is Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst, and I'm very pleased to meet you.”

She did a little curtsy too. That was _kind_ of cute.

“Manuel Calavera,” I reply. I try and smile, though I'm not sure the living can really tell when I do. They aren't my enemies yet, so I might as well be courteous. “But everyone just calls me Manny.”

That seemed to stop her. I'm not sure what surprised her. Was it my name or that I like to be called Manny? Louise was surprised when I told her my name last night too – she thought it was going to be something ominous or scary.

Regardless, I offer my hand out to Kirche. She stares at the offending limb hesitantly as I shake it towards her. “Come on,” I try to sound friendly, “I don't bite.”

Her hand reluctantly reaches towards mine. Her grip is weak, but she takes my bony palm in her own and I return the favour. We shake but she doesn't seem all that into it.

“See? I'm not all that bad.” I let go of her hand. She just sort of stands back and looks into her palm for a few moments. I turn to Louise. “You do shake hands here, right?”

“Y-yes,” Kirche manages to answer instead. Her composure soon returns. “I mean, of course we shake hands. It is a common greeting. It just never occurred to me I'd shake the hands with...” she struggles.

“A dead guy?” Her silence may as well answer my question. “I wouldn't worry about it. I've shaken hands with plenty of dead people, and I turned out fine.”

Apart from the being dead part, but that's more of a prior engagement.

The quiet one suddenly steps forward and offers her hand out to me. Kirche seems somewhat surprised, but I shake the girl's hand regardless. Her grip is much firmer.

“This is Tabitha. She doesn't talk much,” Kirche adds. “But I still think she's adorable.”

I'd ask why I only got her first name instead of the entire driving licence, but I don't. It probably isn't any of my business.

“What did you guys get then?” I ask as I let go of Tabitha's hand. “Did anyone else get a skeleton?”

They probably didn't, but I'm still curious about what they did summon. I saw a bunch of animals gathered yesterday, but none of them stuck around when the students left. And Louise was rather frank when she said that she didn't want me walking around the grounds scaring people.

Kirche smiles again. I can't deny she looks smug, but there's something else in there. It might have been eagerness, or pride, but I'm not too sure. Eyes are strange too. I miss the simplicity of a good old-fashioned eye socket.

She whistles into the air and claps her hands softly. Within moments a red reptile of some sort makes its way towards us. Solid looking scales clad its body, and the head is adorned with something not unlike horns, but all I really focus is the tail; a single plume of fire dances from the tip accompanied by little crackles and sparks.

It walks up to Kirche and curls its head into her waiting hand. The eyes stay narrowed and fixed on me, however.

“I summoned a fire salamander.” There's that smugness again. "I named him Flame. A very fitting familiar for someone like me.”

Because you’re a hothead? “Because it matches your hair?”

“What? No,” she scoffs. “Because of my magical affinity: fire.”

She could have at least chosen a more original name for her familiar than Flame. If I'd summoned a salamander I would have called him Snowdrop, just to be difficult.

Then something occurs to me.

“What's your affinity, then?” I turn to Louise. “If you summoned me, doesn't that mean your affinity is death?” Or skeletons.

“It may as well be,” Kirche says. I get the feeling she's close to laughing. A hand rises to her mouth to thinly hide her curled lips. "Louise doesn't have one. She can't even cast the most basic of spells. Isn't that right, Louise the Zero?”

Louise doesn't say anything. She keeps her eyes focused on the words written on the page in front of her. The skin at her knuckles becomes taught as her grip tightens around the book in her hands. I'm pretty sure she hasn't turned a page since Kirche got here.

I'm also pretty sure I know why Louise doesn't like her.

“But it was nice to meet you.” Oh, was it now? I'm not so sure I agree. “I look forward to seeing what you can do in the talent show, Mister Calavera. Maybe Louise will finally have something to be proud off.”

A quick “come along” to Tabitha and the pair of girls wander away towards the doors of the castle. The salamander silently holds its ground before eventually following in their footsteps. I sort of wish I could curse them now.

Maybe not both of them though; Tabitha seemed polite… or she might if Kirche let her speak. But they do say you should watch out for the quiet ones.

I turn back to Louise, but she still has her face buried within the pages of her book. She isn't even pretending to read it any more. Her face is creased, and her eyes are narrowed in a fashion not unlike the salamander.

The salamander seemed less scary.

"Do they always treat you like that?" I say, in the hope it calms her down.

"Kirche does," she replies. Her head comes away from the book, but the anger dissipates and her lips form into a slight frown. "Though I can't disagree with her. I'm not all that good at magic."

"Hey, don't worry about it!" I pat her on the shoulder. She flinches at my touch, but I pretend not to notice. "I wasn't too good at my job either."

She raises a curious eyebrow. "You...had a job?" she asks. "But you're dead."

A part of me wonders if I should have found that offensive. "We still need something to fill up the hours."

"I… suppose that makes sense." She doesn't sound too convinced. "What did you do?"

"I was a Reaper. I collected the dearly departed and helped them on their journey to the next life."

"I thought you said you were from the next life?"

"The Land of the Dead isn't really the next life. It's more like the waiting room. The Ninth Underworld is where you want to be; The Land of Eternal Rest." I wiggle my fingers in the air for added dramatic effect. "It was my job to help people get there. If they had a good life, I could give them an easier trip."

I wonder how it feels to be told this. Not many people must have the inner workings of the afterlife laid out for them by a member of staff.

"Though Reaper is just a fancy term for travel agent. I got paid on commission, so it all depended on how good my clients were. They weren't always very nice, so I could only sell them walking sticks and shoes."

"What do good people get?"

"A luxury cruise, or a nice new sports car to drive there." She looks confused now. Maybe they don’t have sports cars here? "Basically, if you were good and you get buried with enough money to pay the fare, you get an easier ride onto the next life. If you’re really lucky you can even get an express ticket. A seat on the Number Nine itself!"

"Number Nine?"

"It's a train. One-way ticket to the Land of Eternal Rest. A one stop shop. Most people have to go through a four-year journey of the soul to cleanse themselves of their sins. But you get that golden ticket and your four-year journey is gone in four minutes."

Her little forehead scrunches and her eyes search for something in the grass. I'm pretty sure she's thinking. Maybe this is why the living and the dead don't usually meet. You give away too much of the surprise.

"Not everyone gets a golden ticket though, so I wouldn't worry if you don't qualify. I haven't met many who do."

We stay silent for a while after that. I suppose it must sound rather strange to her, even if I find it commonplace. When you die, you just accept the Land of the Dead and all its quirks. If you don't, there isn't much you can do about it.

You're still dead at the end of the day, and nothing can change that.

Though I can't help but feel there's a certain irony in there somewhere. You can't come back to life, yet here I am: still dead but sat very much amongst the living.

"It sounds complicated," she finally says, a little far-off. "And strange."

"It's not so bad once you get used to it."

Her head perks up a little. "How long..." I think I know what she's going to ask. She's rubbing her hands together and hers eyes are trying their very best to look in every direction except mine. "When did-"

"I die? No idea," I casually tell her. That’s the honest answer. It's been so long, I don't think I could even make an educated guess. "But I was apparently so bad in life, the Powers That Be decided I needed to do some serious community service. And I've been doing that for as long as I can remember."

Well, until now that is.


	3. Mon Petite Charlatan

**Mon Petite Charlatan**   
_Ditto, Pokémon_

“I can do this...”

That was the hope, at least. Despite her own words of reassurance, Louise was no longer sure whether she actually had the ability to summon a familiar. If her misdeeds in the past had proven anything, it was that she certainly had the raw power to do so. Her magic could break apart solid stone walls whilst attempting even the tamest spell.

Her willpower to _control_ these abilities held much to be desired. And that sort of blunder would not be helpful whilst summoning a familiar.

As the little witch wandered away from her classmates she pushed her wand out before her and began to chant. The summoning ceremony was most important: it gave her whole life a moment in time where she could make a life for herself and start anew. It could show the others that they were wrong. She could show them all that she was a competent mage.

It could also confirm her inability as a witch entirely. Concretely so.

Louise had told the others she would summon a dragon or some other deliriously humongous and magnificent beast. Something that would make even that stuck-up _Kirche_ jealous.

“I beg of you my slave who lives somewhere in the universe!”

But inside her own little pink-haired head, she had stopped believing that would actually happen. She said it to everyone else, sure; what else could she do to keep her pride from withering away into nothing. To herself, she was realistic.

At this point, if she got a rabbit to pull out of a hat, she would be more than happy. Or maybe a dog to stand guard by her side as the world looked down on her. A small reptile. Maybe a mouse like Old Osmond or tame magical beast.

“Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!” she sang, “I desire and here I plead from my heart!”

In the end, she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to see appear from her portal. Out of all the strange and bizarre things that could appear, she only hoped that _something_ would answer her call. So long as it was a familiar, she would be happy.

“Answer to my guidance!”

Her eyes were closed, yet she held her body fast. If there was going to be another of her usual explosions, she didn't want dirt in her eyes. But she wouldn’t show that sort of weakness now. If this was to be her final failure, she would put her all into it.

Despite that thought, it seemed for a moment like nothing was going to happen at all. With no loud or explosive results, Louise risked opening her eyes.

Before her, the ground lit up. A circle of light drew itself onto the very grass she stood on as runes and archaic glyphs spread around inside. Much like the students before her, the ritual was working and much to the small mage's delight, her summoning was taking place.

She took a quick step back. Out of respect (and perhaps a small glimmer of amazement) her peers did the same.

Above the summoning circle, a void of light appeared to herald the arrival of whatever it was that was destined to arrive. ‘Herald’ seemed most appropriate for her summoning ritual; the portal was not just sizable, it was positively large. At the very least, it reached twice her own height.

Forget about dogs. Forget about rabbits! Her familiar was nothing of the sort! It was going to dwarf her and, for the first time in her memory, her short stature would not be an issue.

If her familiar was to indeed be some towering beast, then so be it. She would welcome it!

And rub it _right_ in Kiche’s face.

There was not much time for the glory to settle in her heart. From the calm of the portal came something guttural and rough. A roar of some beast that Louise imagined to be much larger than her portal could possible fit.

And then a creature did appear. And Louise realised that the height of a portal did not necessarily correspond to the height of a familiar.

It was a _long_ beast, sharp and jagged with rock and metal. It stormed through the dirt like a shark and roared once more into the ground itself. The force blew chucks of mud and grass into the air and did nothing to muffle the utterly broken sound.

And then it stopped.

**_ ~ A wild Steelix appeared! ~ _ **

Several seconds went by as the monster looked to the sky and the ground through which it swam. The portal closed without a sound behind and all at once it was left alone in its new environment. With its sheer size and presence, it may as well have been alone in the courtyard.

The snake rose and looked further afield, before turning stiffly to Louise and the other humans behind her.

What she had expected to be twice her size was triple it. Quadruple it. It was many times larger and Louise could not accurately decipher how much larger than her it was. The head was as large a size as her portal could have fit and it grew thinner towards the tail. Rough columns of stone and steel jutted out at various points on the way down.

From one moment to the next, Louise could not decide whether she was thrilled or terrified.

“Very impressive, Miss Vallière!” came Colbert, breaking the moment. It was the proudest words towards herself she had from him in some time. “Now, if you would please complete the ritual? We are running rather late as it is.”

She could only agree. Hadn’t she wished for this exact scenario? An immense creature the likes that the student body had never seen before? Something that would thrill and impress…

A brief glance back towards Kirche implied that, yes, her familiar did impress. A few of her fellow students looked dazed at the sight, but none with anything close to the frustration Kirche possessed. It was then that Louise decided.

Today would be a good day.

“My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière...”

Already she was considering names for her mighty beast. Nothing especially brilliant ran through her mind in those brief seconds but the potential made her giddy. Steely, rugged names that benefited the image of a monster such as the one before her.

She moved closer, with only a hint of hesitation. The creature took notice, staring through her. All she could her hear were the guttural breaths and shifting of solid stone against itself.

Louise stopped feet from it. She closed her eyes.

“Pentagon of the five elemental powers,” she continued, ecstatic. “bless this humble being and make him my familiar.”

And she kissed it. A simple kiss, to the stone; it was cool and smoother than she has anticipated. Almost polished.

But then how it roared in _pain_.

Immediately, without even thinking, Louise found her legs moving back. She fell to the ground and kept pushing herself back further then thought her body could manage and it continued to howl and bleed horrid, grating sounds. It writhed around, pulling up the earth and grass with it.

Just as quickly as it started, the event came to an end; her familiar began to glow the brightest white Louise couldn't imagine before shifting. It grew smaller. Smaller.

Then smaller still than that.

It became so small that it likely only came up to Louise’s thigh, bent her knees. Finally, it stopped.

The white faded.

There had been an almighty creature stood before her. Something that, for several moments, Louise had imagined to be hers.

**_ ~ Wild Steelix transformed back into Ditto! ~ _ **

There was now a little pink blob of goop on the ground in front of her. With beady little eyes and nothing more than a thin cut for a mouth.

It looked up at her, despite her lowered position on the ground.

At first there were several seconds of silence. That silence was broken by an almost cackling laughter with a distinct Germanic accent. Kirche was not going to ruin this for her. At least, no more than her hopes had already been dashed and trampled in the last minute.

Louise looked down to her familiar. Right into its tiny eyes.

“Hello,” she said, with a meagre wave of a hand. Half-hearted it may have been, but she was working with stressed nerves as it was.

At first the thing only stared at her, following the movement of her arm. Then it mimicked her, shifting a spread of pink that could, if one squinted, held the beginnings of an arm.

“Ditto!” it replied, with a smile.


	4. Handle With Care

**Handle With Care**   
_Jessie, Toy Story 2  
_

A box.

When the ethereal light of the ritual faded, there was little to see. No drifting dust. No remnants of an explosion or other such magical mishap. The grounds of the Academy were as they’d always been and nothing so much as a sound had been uttered in the moments it took the entire sequence of events to transpire.

Louise had summoned nothing more than a small, unassuming brown box.

Said box did not move, nor did any sound come from within the box to imply that something was inside.

It just _was_.

And Louise felt something knot horribly tight within her stomach.

Kirche, as always, was quick to latch onto Louise’s latest in a long line of failures.

“Is this supposed to be the vessel of your almighty familiar, Louise?” she guffawed, enticing laughter from those around her. To what extent, Louise did not care to listen but there were too many amongst the separate voices to ignore. “How large! It might even contain a whole kitten.”

Louise wasn’t quite sure she’d heard her. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was hearing anything at all. The only thought going through her mind, the only thing even remotely relevant to her, was the developing idea that she had failed to summon a familiar at all.

She ignored them.

Taking several steps forward, her legs held no feeling as she moved closer to where the summoning portal had once been. Louise half-worried she would topple over her own feet before she even made it to the box. But she did make it.

Upon closer inspection, it was ever so slightly more than a box. It was an old thing, dented in several places and, to the touch, made from a dry material. Almost like parchment. It was as worn at the edges as one would expect an old book. Unloved, untouched and touched too much in equal measure.

Upon two sides of the box was a word in bold, alien lettering.

‘D O N A T I O N S’

Beneath was a picture not unlike an egg, with a heart drawn inside. Open-palmed hands extended out from the heart, wings to one side of Louise’s mind but a warm welcome to another. More symbols were below the heart, still within the egg.

‘T R I C O U N T Y C H A R I T I E S’

Despite now standing over it, her shadow looming on the dry material of the box, no sounds came from within. A weak seal held the top of the box together, stuck in place but past its prime.

With a deep breath held in her lungs, Louise tore at the seal and opened the box.

“N-No…”

There was no creature inside. No kitten, rat or toad. Not even a scuttling cockroach.

Nothing.

Frantic, Louise glossed over the items that were inside.

A pair of leather boots in a style she did not recognise.

Trinkets and knick-knacks shaped like stars and horses.

A square contraption with numbers and symbols.

A doll in gaudy cow-hide trousers and a red hat.

And a metal case with a handle that had yet more of the strange symbols on the front. Along with an image of the doll next to it.

“J E S S I E.”

“No,” Louise said again, prying open the metal case. There was something inside. She would take it, whatever it was. A mite. A gnat. A snail.

Her voice came as barely a breath. “No… no no no please.”

Clips came undone and thick squares of parchment came tumbling out by the dozens, adorned with faces and symbols and words.

Several featured the doll. Some had horses and men and women and more people in the disgusting clothing the doll was wearing but nothing was… alive. Nothing was a tangible creature she could make the contract with.

 _Louise the Zero_ , she thought bitterly to herself.

She had summoned a box of rubbish. Complete and utter _rubbish_.

Her head strained to pull together the correct emotion for this moment in her life. Sadness? Rage? Regret? So many dark thoughts drifted through her head in such a small amount of time that they caused pain, even as the memory of their brief existence faded.

What would she do now?

She could not stay at the Academy. She had failed the summoning ritual. She had failed to accomplish one of the most basic principles that defined a mage. She had no familiar.

She had failed.

What would he mother say to her? A youngest daughter who had no talent for magic, no familiar, not even an affinity to cling to? What else could be done but disown Louise from the family? It was the only reasonable choice if they wished to keep their place amongst the nobility. She had failed her heritage.

She had failed.

Oh, the princess. Henrietta would never speak to her again. Louise would not be _permitted_ to speak with her. Common folk were not permitted to know her on such a level and that is what Louise was, because she had failed again and again and again-

“- Vallière?” Colbert was behind her, now. His voice was curious, though tainted with something… grim. Like dread. “Miss Vallière, did you complete the ritual?”

It might have been worth her time to hurriedly close the box. It might have even benefited her for a precious few hours if she had simply lied to her teacher. But her body refused to move, and her eyes simply stared into the eyes of the doll.

Colbert peered into the box with her, searching as she had. The result was the same.

“O-Oh…” was all he said, his voice a dismayed sigh. That was all Louise needed to hear. “If you wish, you may repeat the-“

“Don’t embarrass me,” Louise hissed, not allowing her body to move a single muscle. “Please.” Just let me walk away, she thought. “Please.”

Another sound of pity escaped through his nostrils as he returned to his full height. Had he truly been kneeling this whole time? Louise couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t have cared less.

But she could hide this. For a precious few minutes, or even hours… she could hide this. Perhaps even fix it.

“Quite right,” Colbert whispered, before returning his sights to the rest of class. “With the final ritual now complete, that brings an end to the summoning ceremony. As is tradition, you have the time between now and the talent show to progress the relationship with your-”

But Louise was already gone. Past her teacher, past her classmates.

Back to her room with the parchment box and a horrid sting behind her eyes.

***

Still in the box.

Still in the box, but…

Dim sunlight eased through the handle, illuminating the interior for the first time in what could have been decades. More than that? Less?

Jessie didn’t know. She had never really counted.

At first, she hadn’t realised the box had even moved. Perhaps that was what happened when you weren’t played with for so long. Maybe you just stopped.

But then there was sunlight. A single ray, cutting into the darkness. When had she moved outside? Why her box? What happened to the rest of them? Did she care?

She didn’t really know. She had been on her own too long for these questions to matter.

But the things she saw a little under twenty minutes ago still plagued her mind.

The crowd had been a little beyond her box, far enough that she managed a peek without being seen.

The crowd wasn’t a normal kind of crowd.

Big… animals. A lizard with a fiery tail, an eye with wings that just… existed there, in the air without even a flap of its wings. Something absolutely gigantic like a frog, but long and blue. A dragon? No…

Maybe…

Would something so fantastical be such a stupid suggestion? It had _looked_ like a dragon. The lizard thing had looked like a dragon. Two whole dragons.

All of those animals were alive and moving and reacting to every touch and smell in the air. They were _real_.

What did that mean? What did any of this nonsense mean?

New situations called for new questions. And the newest question was: where was she?

The box had since been moved again, though this time Jessie had been aware enough to notice. The crowd, the outside, the sun, they were all gone. Replaced by shade and quiet.

Shifting carefully – so, so carefully – Jessie peered out through the slit in the box that was the handles. She was welcomed to a room, with a wardrobe and drawers and all the other things one could expect. Especially central was an ornate looking desk. A mirror was attached on top and, in the reflection, she could see a bed.

The bed was a fancy thing, all plush and prim. Tall bedpost and curtains that hung from rails that complimented the sheets perfectly.

On top of those sheets was a slumped body with pink hair. If the dulled thud was anything to go by, the girl has let herself fall there several minutes ago and hadn’t budged since.

Girl? Child?

Woman?

“Definitely a kid,” Jessie whispered. The face that had first peered into the box was so petite, her body tiny.

Her eyes had been so pink. People didn’t have pink eyes, did they? Pink hair, you could get that. Emily had posters of pink hair on her bedroom wall. You couldn’t just change your eye colour. Or had she truly been locked away in storage that long?

… Another maybe.

Jessie was the new toy again. She would just need to wait for another toy. They would help her, they would explain what was going on.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jessie caught movement. The girl was stirring from whatever rest she had attempted and was sitting up from the bed.

Falling limp in the box, Jessie listened to the sounds of footsteps and mumbled words in a foreign language. Maybe French. Italian?

Jessie… spoke neither.

The pink-haired girl opened the box once more, lifting it as she pulled out the entire contents and placed it on the bed. Jessie included, being lifted so carefully onto crumpled silk bedsheets.

Then the girl put her down to fetch the rest.

Already, Jessie missed the warmth of a hand around her stomach. Someone holding her, giving her any amount of confirmation that she was a toy that existed.

Now empty, the box was tossed back onto the floor. It landed atop a heaped pile of hay, tucked away in the corner.

Jessie waited as the girl looked over everything, picking each item up and eyeing them extensively. The whole time, a dreariness bled from her, like her body was screaming rest despite knowing full well there was plenty of work left to do.

When she finally reached Jessie, it was the same. Examination, prodding and poking. See which way each part of her moved and how it operated. Until the girl hooked her finger around the pull-string at Jessie’s back.

 _“Hi there!”_ her voice box chimed. _“I'm Jessie!”_

Not an instant went by before the girl squealed and dropped Jessie on the floor, taking a large step back.

Her eyes facing away from the girl, Jessie winced as her head hit the floor with a dull thud. Her hat skittered across the floor, landing several inches out of her reach.

The girl breathed something, once again in French (or Italian) before picking up Jessie once again. More poking and prodding and pulling at Jessie’s face and despite the urge to sneeze or shift, Jessie did not.

The girl once again pulled at the string.

_“Yee Haw!”_

Thankfully, the girl held Jessie this time. The girl spoke again, her tone ending higher on the final word. Another pull of the cord.

_“There’s nothing like a good adventure!”_

But each new line of dialogue left her looking more and more frustrated. Each pull of the string an annoyance.

_“Let’s ride like the wind!”_

Yet Jessie didn’t care.

_“Way to go, Cowpoke!”_

Or, she forced herself to endure it. Enjoy it? A child was pulling her string, making her talk. Trying to talk back. How long had she waited for this? Anything close to this.

Emily was gone. Emily wasn’t coming back. She had accepted that years ago. Stuck in her box, stuck in the dark, surrounded by countless other boxes… Was it so wrong of her to want just this little something?

_“Let’s Yodel!”_

This foreign girl was here now. Even if jessie couldn’t understand her, she would take it. Even if the girl couldn’t understand Jessie, it was enough.

Anything to feel like she was bringing joy to a child.

_“YodelayHeeHoo!”_

Eventually, all her phrases cycled through and began to repeat themselves. Jessie briefly considered changing them, adapting them to suit. Try and say something _more_. Try and repeat something. Anything to hold attention.

But that wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t the way.

And what did it even matter when the girl couldn’t understand her?

The girl moved to her desk, Jessie still in hand. Pulling out a quill and ink (a _quill?_ ), she scribbled symbols down onto a roll of paper. Then she again pulled at Jessie’s string,

Wrote down some symbols, pull.

Wrote down some symbols, pull.

Over and over until, once again, Jessie found her voice clips had done a complete loop. The girl realised this as well, it seems.

This time she pulled the string, putting a small tick next to a set of symbols after Jessie finished speaking. Then again and again until it was more than clear a pattern was present.

Because that was how a prerecording worked.

This only seemed to make the girl more aggravated. Jessie was placed on the desk before the girl scratched her hands through her hair, taking in deep breaths as tears began to prick at the edge of her eyes. A redness spread over them until she seemed to steel herself once more.

Jessie watched as the girl picked up a stick from the desk. It was something she had seen the girl with before, back on the outside when the box had first been opened.

Then the girl began to talk aloud once more. Except, this time was not like the others. It wasn’t just simple words or conversation. It was practised and tight. A chant that –

The room promptly exploded into a cloud of dust and fumes. A heat seemed to wash over the entire room, rushing over Jessie and holding itself right in her chest for longer than it had any right too. It took all her effort not to cough away the soot.

But the girl was talking again first. Her words broken, but not because they were falling apart. “Please, please work…”

As if they were being put back together.

Once more, the girl approached Jessie, growling at the mess that has been made. Pink eyes met the mirror, meeting an equally pink stare with dirty features that were quickly ignored.

Once more Jessie’s string was pulled.

_“Hi there! I'm Jessie!”_

“Jessie…” the girl repeated. Another tick next to the patterns. “My name is Louise. Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière.”

_Louise…_

What was that? That explosion? That stick that…

Was it a magic wand? It couldn’t be a _magic wand_. Magic wands and dragons? In the same place? Or different places. Jessie wasn’t sure why it would matter where they were. Both were stupid.

She…

She was stupid. And confused.

Where _was_ she?

What was going on?!

Louise pulled at her string again, her eyes hopeful.

_“Yee Haw!”_

Then clouded. “I-I don’t know what that means.” One more tick. Pulled again.

_“There’s nothing like a good adventure!”_

Louise swallowed. “You’re not saying these things, are you? You just say the same things over and over again.”

Pull.

_“Let’s ride like the wind!”_

“Please say something different,” Louise begged. “Please.”

_“Way to go, Cowpoke!”_

“Please.”

_“Let’s Yodel!”_

“Say something!”

_“YodelayHee-”_

Jess was thrown at the bed, only stopping when she landed face-up on the pillow at the very end.

_“-Hoo!”_

“No, no I can’t do this. This can’t be right,” Louise mumbled, pacing fratically. “I can’t have summoned a doll. I-I can’t just have summoned a box of _junk_. I can go again. Mr. Colbert will have to let me go again.” Pink eyes found Jessie before they closed. A deep sigh released. “He’ll have to let me go again.”

With that, Louise moved for the door. Despite her size she pulled it hard, yanking the entire thing open to reveal a stone hallway before she wandered out of sight.

Slowly, Jessie watched as the door shut once more.

For the first time, she was alone again. She shot up to her feet.

“Hello?” she whispered, hissed. Anything to get attention. “Any other toys?”

No response.

Not even a hesitation of a response. The same sounds present in the room before permeated it now.

Climbing quickly down from the bed, Jessie peered beneath. Boxes and cases neatly aligned and not a speck of dust to be found. “Anyone?”

Again, nothing.

No toys.

The same occurred at the wardrobe and the drawers and everywhere else that Jessie dared to manage before making her way back to the bed. She sat in her previous spot and stared forward, focused on her own face emblazoned on a lunchbox.

She wondered if she would ever smile like that again.

It was only minutes, but Louise eventually returned. The door moved open in a slow lurch as Louise made her way over to the bed.

She sat down, turning briefly to look at Jessie. Louise picked her up.

Gathering her wand and staring forward with only a vacant look in her eye, Louise began chanting once more.

"Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers,” she finally said, her voice droll, yet steady. “Grant your blessings upon this–” until the words got caught in her throat. “This _creature_ and bind it as my familiar...”

Louise lifted Jessie and planted a dry kiss on her forehead.

Then there was something burning inside Jessie’s right hand. Not on, or around but _in_ and for the first time since she could ever remember, she wanted to scream. There was falling and pain and accidents but not this. This was a fire melting her plastic from the inside. A mean kid with a magnifying glass, holding her down and forcing to feel this agony.

She did not move.

She refused.

But there was something… new.

Something at the very back of her head whispered that she should, that it would be okay to move. Or not even a whisper; it was the suggestion of a whisper or a hushed suggestion passed from toy to toy until it finally reached her.

But that whisper was wrong.

You did not move in front of children.

You did not move in front of people.

Jessie wanted to move, to scream.

But before she could wonder about those thoughts and whispers, the pain subsided. Her plastic remained unmelted and her hand was still there. She could feel it.

Louise dropped Jessie onto the pile of hay, alongside the discarded box. A brief glance at her hand confirmed its existence… though with one change.

Symbols had been etched into her plastic, meticulously detailed and clean in execution.

Jessie watched as Louise wordlessly climbed into bed, removing only her shirt and skirt before closing the shutters to her window and burying herself beneath the covers. Muffled sobs reverberated within the sheets.

Jessie could only listen until the girl eventually fell into a distressed and uncomfortable sleep.

***

There was banging on the door of the room.

Sunlight no longer slithered through the shutters, staining through the gloom. The sun was gone now, in its place was a numb darkness lit only by the barest pale haze from outside. Jessie allowed her eyes to wander, as she had often done when stuck beneath Emily’s bed.

Without a source of light, it was just as dark a place.

On the floor of Louise’s room, Jessie dared not wander. It was fine to be misplaced when a kid had a lot of toys. After all, how were they to know where each one had been left?

But it was harder to justify being found somewhere she had not been left when it was only you. Jessie supposed she would need to get used to that fact.

“Zero!”

The banging continued, now with a voice. Feminine, yet deep. Like Louise, the voice spoke a language that Jessie could not place yet completely understand as if she could.

“Don’t think you get to take the easy route out!” the voice continued. “You promised me a grand familiar. It must be something spectacular if you wanted to shield our eyes from it right after the ritual!”

It was a voice Jessie recognised.

Not because she knew who this woman or girl was. But the manner of talking, the tone. The confident strikes against the door and that feigned curiosity took Jessie back to the earlier days of Emily’s childhood.

 _Bullies_. Mean children.

Louise shifted from her bed, grumbling obscenities under her breath. “Of course. Of course, _now_ of all times,” she seethed.

Dainty feet padded onto the floor, clearly lighter than the mood called for as Louise swiftly clothed herself in the discarded clothes from earlier and stomping over towards the door with all the energy her grogginess could muster

But not before roughly picking up Jessie.

Then there was more knocking, irritating and continuous. “Come on, Louise. I’m wai-”

The door was quickly opened, and Jessie was thrown straight out.

Right into the fleshy nose of the other girl.

For the second time that day, Jessie fell to the floor, head-first. Her hat didn’t fare any better this time either, as it skipped across the floor several inches away. The girl took a step back in surprise, rubbing at her face with a sneer over her features.

“What’s this supposed to be?”

The door to Louise’s room was closed before the question had been finished.

Whilst Louise was surely a child, this other girl was closer to someone Jessie would call a woman. Her body was full, more rounded and with such luscious red hair. At least a late teenager and about as cocky, if her attitude was anything to go by.

Also, unlike Louise was the girl’s skin; a perfect sepia-brown without a blemish in sight.

The girl picked up Jessie by the hand, staring into her before her brow crinkled into a frown that couldn’t tell if it was meant to be entertained or confused. “Don’t tell me this _doll_ is your familiar?”

Louise kept silent. At least, the door kept silent; Louise might as well have not been present.

Then the girl’s face changed, shirking from something boisterous to… well, not something softer. But certainly, something less harsh.

“If you think I’m going to believe this pathetic excuse of a lie then you–”

“Then you’ll _what_ , you stupid Zerbst? You’re just as pathetic for thinking I’d lie about something as serious as this!”

There was another bang on the door, followed by the sound of something breaking on the other side. A chair, a table? Jessie couldn’t tell, but the racket achieved was likely the main focus. The ‘stupid Zerbst’ bristled once more, whatever softer state her mind had been in entirely forgotten.

“It doesn’t make you any less pathetic for summoning a doll!” ‘Zerbst’ looked down at Jessie with distaste. “I guess it’s mine now, anyway. Seeing you want nothing to do with it.”

Zerbst waited for a response. As did Jessie.

No further response came from the door. No banging or booming.

Not even a whimper at the prospect of Jessie being taken away.

“Fine!” Zerbst yelled, her grip growing tighter around Jessie’s waist.

_My hat!_

Jessie was very quickly being brought into another room across the hall from Louise. The door was identical, and Zerbst let out a disgruntled huff as she shoved it open.

The interior was not dissimilar from Louise’s room; a bed, a table, a wardrobe and all the accompanying furniture that came with such a room. An ornate window. The style of these items differed, however. Sultry purples and golds were much prominent and there were far more cosmetics on display than Jessie had seen before. Not just simple blush and lipstick, but beautiful bottles of perfume and ornate brushes.

And, when Jessie was let go, she found more silk bedding to be the material that greeted her. When her head settled, she saw something else.

The _thing_ that had been following the Zerbst.

It truly was a like some breed of dragon. Four legs, stout and with narrow, evil feature pulling at scales. A thick body that ended in a tail, lit by a burning, fiery tip. Its eyes drifted her way, but kept most of their focus on Louise’s door.

Still, Jessie watched as it skulked around, never roaming far from the new girl. The Zerbst checked her reflection in the mirror, pulling gently at her skin and combing fingers through her hair in a practised fashioned before leaving back for the hallway.

“Come, Flame. Let’s leave Louise to stew. Maybe she’ll be done by the time we return.”

As Zerbst moved to close the door, Jessie risked a glance towards them, eyeing the monster more so than anything else.

What little movement she had made caught its yellow eye just as the door clicked shut.

Stock still, Jessie waited for something to happen. Surely it wouldn’t try to get back in.

Hopefully it wouldn’t try to get back in…

A brief dent against the door suggested yes. Like a cat scratching at wood.

“What are you doing?” Zerbst hissed. “We’re going outside. Come on.”

Brief noises persisted. Hissing and crackling and the minute movement of heavy feet until, eventually, it seemed the pair did eventually leave.

And that left Jessie all alone. _Without_ her hat.

She sat up on the bed, looked around and called for other toys. Anyone.

No one responded.

That was something she could have dealt with, in all honesty. If she had a child that wanted to play with her, she could get past the lack of others to talk too. Some children just couldn’t afford more than one toy.

Living with nasty children… she would have taken that too. Children that throw their toys around in fits of anger and used them to hit others are still children that play with their toys.

It would be something.

But now there were _monsters._ Not toys, but real monsters with fire at the ends of their tails that could tear her apart without so much as a second thought. Then burn her to ashes for good measure to ensure nothing was left behind.

That same monster belonged to the mean girl.

What did that mean for Jessie?

“I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled under breath, thinking slower than she would have liked. “What do I do?”

What options did she really have? Still the lone toy, they would notice her missing. Toys just didn’t up and vanish.

To people, anyways.

But Zerbst was older, right? Would she care if a toy was lost? She was a teenager, at least. If that was the case, she would be no different than…

Than…

“…”

Teenagers didn’t need toys like Jessie. Zerbst wouldn’t care. Louise hadn’t cared all that much when she’d thrown Jessie out the room into the other girl’s face.

Did it really matter what Jessie did, then?

What if she found another child? She was out of storage. She was out of the box and ready to be played with. Her speaker still worked, and her clothes were in good condition. Sans hat.

There would be a child out there that wanted to play with her. There had to be something out there for her. More than two squabbling girls.

Then she had a brave thought.

“The window!”

She could climb out the window.

No one would notice.

They might even think her stolen.

And if nothing else it would get her away from the dragon. And the Zerbst girl.

And Louise.

Running across the covers, Jessie leapt and caught onto the silk netting hanging from the bedframe. Pulling herself up, she swung back and forth until the momentum carried her enough of the way to jump to the windowsill.

Just about, at least. Her hands grabbed at the ledge and she pulled herself up the rest of the way.

The shutters were open, and they offered a view of the night sky; a grand, ethereal blue landscape littered with speckled galaxies and stars. Cloudless sky as far as the eye could see, separated from the world below only by tall trees and far-off signs of civilisation.

No moon, yet. But she would see it soon.

Peering down, however, offered… not the best sight; a vast courtyard with impeccable grass. Lovely in and of itself, if not for the distance.

Jessie could not gauge, not really. Two stories? Maybe three.

Being a ragdoll offered several benefits over other toys. She was hard to break, slow to tear. Her stitching was top-notch and tighter than a horse’s stirrup. Her head was hollow and malleable and very unlikely to break unless you tried very hard. With a very sharp knife.

The thought sent a shiver down her back. Now was not the time.

Grass was also relatively soft. Toss her up in the air and a good lawn isn’t going to do much damage to her at all.

But those weren’t the only things a toy thought about when look down from a great height. Because it was still a _great height_. There was still falling and jumping and the great potential for something to go wrong.

One of her seams could burst.

Her voice box could break.

Her head could pop out at the neck.

Nothing that couldn’t be fixed… if there was someone willing to fix her.

Right now, she wasn’t so sure there was.

That’s when she noticed. Leaning over just a little bit further, Jessie caught a better glimpse at the brickwork. As with the rest of the world around her, it was built for a bigger brand of person… yet, it was still the walls of a castle. Each brick offered enough space between for her to grip.

She could climb down.

No jumping necessary.

With that, her route forward was decided.

Climbing down took time, but not much of it. Only minutes passed before Jessie once again had earth beneath her boots. The soft rustle of the grass as she took each new step felt so loud to her, in the night-time. When anything could be hiding, and anyone could be watching.

But she couldn’t go back into the box. Or risk being broken.

She needed to be anywhere.

Anywhere but here.

Yet all around her, the courtyard stretched. While a person might walk to the surrounding walls in a matter of minutes, Jessie judged it would take her significantly longer.

A strong wind from behind caught the thick threads of her. This lead her gaze forward, to the main gate, or so it seemed. That is where she set off towards.

As she did, logical thought began to return.

… What plans did she even have for when she reached the gate? To run? To find a child? How far would a child be? How would a _house_ be? Was the forest thick, between the castle and the far-off places she saw? What would live in there? What would be able to break her in there? What… what-

What was she _doing_?

“I don’t know what to do,” Jessie mumbled, panicked and quick.

Then she felt the breeze again, warmer. The sound of heavy weight being laid upon the grass and breathing in. Then out.

She froze on the spot, waiting.

When nothing happened, she turned her head as slowly as she could. And there it was.

A creature… _thousands_ of times her size. Blue, with shimmering scales and horns on its head with emerald green eyes.

The dragon from before.

“H-hello,” Jessie eased, the air escaping her non-existent lungs. Her hands were raising into the air on instinct alone and voice forced high. “It’s o-okay. I’m not going to hurt you. And I would taste awful, you know? So much cotton and plastic. Just, just be nice-”

The thing screeched at her, the breath forcing Jessie back in a wayward tumble across the grass. When the world finally solidified, beneath her, the dragon was back in the air, rising into the night, right within the sight of… the moons.

Two moons, not just one.

One blue.

One red.

She’d been saved being turned into a meal but… she didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She didn’t return to her escape or think back to thoughts of the castle.

She simply stared at the two, alien moons.

Where _was_ she?

That’s all she wanted to know.

Where was this place, that had dragons and magic wands and dragons and monsters and _dragons?_ Why were there no other toys? Why was she so scared and alone and trapped despite sitting in a courtyard with two moons in the sky and dragon somewhere she couldn’t see and stuck with no one to talk to and no one to love her what had she done wrong she had tried so hard to be there for Emily she had tried so hard to be a good toy why did no one take her back out of her box what was wrong with her what was wrong with her what was–

Jessie was on the ground curled in on herself when she first heard the new footsteps. Normal footsteps, from a person.

It took little effort to just ease herself out, to untangle her body from the fetal position enough to appear natural. It was dark. Perhaps they would simply walk past?

The person did not.

The person stopped next to Jessie and picked her up with one hand.

It was a girl, or so Jessie assumed. With sky-blue hair and rimmed reading-glasses. Pale skin? Unlike Louise, she had some sort of staff in one hand whilst she held Jessie with another. Her gaze was curious, but not in the same way a child might be with a new toy. It had a serious edge to it, something Jessie couldn’t place.

Shifting Jessie in her grip, cradling her in the crook of her arm, not unlike a small baby, the girl began moving back towards the castle.

“I know you’re alive,” the girl says simply, flatly.

Jessie’s heart grew cold.

“The Rhyme Dragon you just encountered. She is my familiar. I saw it through her eyes.”

Everything was wrong. Jessie didn’t understand.

No toy she knew had ever revealed themselves to a child. Or a teenager, or an adult. It simply wasn’t something that you did.

You didn’t need to.

“A familiar is a creature summoned by a mage to serve them. To fetch for them. To live with them. To care for them. I summoned a Rhyme Dragon. Louise summoned you.”

_To care for them…_

“Louise is very upset,” the girl then said. “She did not think she would summon a familiar. She now believes that is true.”

Is that what Jessie was meant to be, to Louise? Did that explain the desperation and the anger? Did it excuse it?

Did it excuse Jessie’s own actions?

What was supposed to happen now?

“You should talk to her.”

Jessie didn’t know. She had spent so long in that box. She had waited for someone new to pick her up and play with her. She had waited for so long for something to change.

She had been so alone.

Now Louise was alone, too.

Before anything else could enter Jessie’s mind, there was shouting and screaming. An argument from further down the stone corridor that she was being carried.

She recognised the voices.

“You were the one that took it into your room!”

“You were the one that threw at my face. You should be lucky I didn’t burn the damned thing to ashes!”

Louise and the Zerbst were arguing again, somehow even more heated than before. Even from a distance, Jessie see the shorter girl’s cheeks flushed with red and her eyes heavy from tears.

With Jessie hat held tightly in her small hand.

The shouting reached fever pitch, the sort of heights you expect to precede a fight with more than just words, before Jessie’s carrier softly spoke up first.

Magically, she was heard above the uproar.

“I found your familiar,” she said plainly. “She was outside trying to escape into the forest.”

Put so bluntly, the two girls did not seem to know what to say, or how to accurately respond. Whilst the red-head merely settled on a concerned frown, Louise only tensed her jaw and let the anger consume her once more.

“Shut up,” she spat. “ _Shut up!_ Give me the stupid doll.”

She didn’t wait. Louise grabbed Jessie from the girl’s gentle grip and, once more, Jessie found herself back in the confines of Louise’s room.

Jessie had expected screaming. She had expected to be thrown around again, or to be dumped unceremoniously on the floor. Instead, Louise held her tight. The little witch managed only a few steps until she crumpled to the ground herself.

Pink hair covered Jessie’s vision and the haggard breath of a girl trying to hold something back touched her plastic face. She was pulled close to Louise’s chest.

Jessie was spun around before there was a sudden tug at her pull string.

_“Hi there! I'm Jessie!”_

And Jessie was brought back to reality of the situation once more. This… _new_ reality, where things were supposedly different. A reality where dragons were real, and witches summoned monsters.

Or toys, apparently.

Louise’s finger never unhooked from her pull string. Jessie could feel a subtle pull at her back, tensing itself as ligaments in Louise’s finger readied to pull it once more.

It was fraction of a second. A moment.

But it was a moment enough for Jessie to make a choice. Louise didn’t have time to pull the string.

_“And… it’s okay…” her voice box said._

Louise’s hand tensed once more, though this time it did not pull back on the string. She turned the doll around, looking into the manufactured eyes.

She spoke then, but not before wiping her sleeve across her nose. “W-What?”

Jessie wasn’t meant to move in front of people. She wasn’t meant to even consider the idea. She hadn’t before and had assumed she never would, no matter what occurred in her life as a toy.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Jessie let herself relax. Her plastic became less so and her eyes held a shining in them that no doll could truly replicate.

And it surprised Jessie as much as it did Louise when the doll replied through her own lips. “I’m here for you.”

There was silence, for a while. Both stared at the other, judging the situation. Working through the mixture of emotions that clouded such a small space.

Louise looked as if she thought herself mad. Jessie brought a hand up to soothe her finger, letting her small palm rub back and forth. The same hand with those odd, alien runes.

“It’s going to be okay.”

And as Jessie was pulled back into another hug, she decided that, yes, she had made the right choice.

And that everything was going to be okay.


	5. The One That Got Away

**The One That Got Away**   
_Pinkie Pie Clone, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_

They were coming for her.

It was ridiculous to think that her life as it was could last forever. Pinky wasn’t a born-mare, she wasn’t natural. She was nothing more than a picture half-copied onto another piece of paper. Identical at first glance, sure, but filled with mistakes and minor defects the further down you dug into the charade.

She didn’t even have her own name. Just another aspect of the original with some pieces missing.

So Pinky sat there, with the dumpsters and muck behind the diner in the hopes that the others wouldn’t check there. They had left only minutes ago, but their search wouldn’t end so soon.

_Making copies of yourself always sounds like a great idea, but before you know it you’re locked in a room with fifty Pinkie Pies watching paint dry._

Fifty.

They had been one short all this time and they hadn’t noticed. And now they were here, where Pinky was trying to be, and they had to be there for her. It’s was too coincidental, too unlikely to be anything else.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, her ears twitching sporadically. “Everything is fine.” Her breathing grew faster. “They’ll be gone soon, and I can move somewhere else. Somewhere they would never expect a Pinkie Pie to go. I’ll dye my coat, cut my mane.”

No one had questioned her so far. Pinkie Pie being weird? Pinkie Pie being in two places at once? Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie?

No problem. Nothing to question.

Yet, what little Pinky had come to have as her own was dropping out of reality. Tears pricked at the edges of her eyes and the forced joy that constantly threatened to bubble up from her chest was doused in a moment, nothing more than an ember flicked by her hoof.

Her body would fare no better. Twilight would find her and zap her out of existence like all the other copies. There would be nothing of her left. Only a story with nothing of value compared to the book it was based on.

Clenching her eyes shut, Pinky prepared herself for the coming hours. She pulled in a deep breath, gathering all the calm she could muster. Storing it deep in her chest for when she would need it most, because she was going to need it.

Pinky opened her eyes.

A soft, green glow greeted her. Above the ground, not much taller or wider than herself. A warming light that simply existed there.

Such a thing should have hurt her eyes, even if just a little. Something so close. Yet, it only continued to add to the calm Pinky had been gathering. In the moments since she had witnessed it, the green brought only one thought to her mind.

It was for her.

_I beg of you, my servant who lives somewhere in this universe…_

It existed only for her. Not for Pinkie Pie, not for any other pony, real or not real.

_Oh sacred, beautiful, and powerful familiar spirit! I desire and plead from the depths of my heart!_

Pinky’s hooves moved forward.

_Answer to my guidance!_

Then she was gone.


	6. Fallen From Heaven

**Fallen From Heaven**  
_Weeping Angel, Doctor Who_

It was hungry.

The lonely thing was so, _so_ hungry.

It was barely a dirty speck to the horizon; a single worn rock in an endless sea of ashen sand and soaring black spires. The trailing dust of the desert billowed around it, heated and burning with the solar winds that bombarded the planet. Yet, the thing sat still, its body wedged stiff within the sand.

The sky hummed as endless storms constantly threatened and goaded overhead. Lightning lashed out at the spires with ferocious accuracy, never missing an opportunity to further what had already befallen the world that once had a name.

The world that once had a name also once had cities. Shining cities, built methodically around the spires that rose from within the planet. The soft people looked to them as things to be admired; natural formations that they, too, should aspire to. Tall and filled with a majesty that they, in their primitive state, could only stare up and wonder at how such a thing could possibly exist on their little world.

Now there were only the burning sands.

The creature had not moved for some time. It could not remember when it had last moved, but the action seemed all but redundant. There was nothing on which to feed, therefore, no reason to move from where it lay. Conservation was the best means of survival.

There was nothing to hunt and, therefore, nothing to consume.

So it waited. It did so until time seemed to bleed into rush of endless movements around it. So much constant change in the environment, yet no real change at all. The population had long since died and, with them, their seemingly infinite potential.

In the end, there was never truly any potential there. The asteroid would have always happened; it would have always come to pass and fallen from the orange skies. It would have always struck the planet. The species was a poor choice, in that regard; it was forever doomed to wither and die in fire.

Everything that ever was on the planet ended in that instant. Every possible future, every piece of potential time centred on that one single moment in history.

Everything died.

Yet, still, the creature waited. It had no choice. Time was unkind; without nourishment, the creature had become nothing more than an unrecognisable husk; a shape that, perhaps, could have once appeared to be bipedal.

It once had two arms, two legs. A set of immobile wings latched onto its back. The annals of history had all but worn them into oblivion. It barely retained the likeness it once had. Much like the planet, it too once had a name.

It was an Angel.

But now it simply waited. It was nothing more than a furrowed rock on a broken landscape. There was nothing it could do but wait. It waited for some change to occur, for some unknown moment in history to occur and grant it a chance.

After too much time had passed by, one such moment came to pass.

At first there was only the arrival of energy, a light emitting from an unknown source with a power all of its own. The Angel sat amidst the ruins and sand as the light appeared within its feeble line of sight. The arrival disturbed nothing. It glistened within the air, separate and less frightening than the harsh flash of the thunder. It brought with it green warmth and a nature the planet had long since lost.

The Angel devoured it.

Each passing moment the light existed, it absorbed. The angel fed. It felt heat and energy and all the things that came with life and movement. The world seemed sharper. The sand and the burning heat began to feel painful and real. The noises became loud and incredible.

Movement became a feasible reality as it suddenly found a dilapidated arm outstretched towards the light. It savoured the spiced air the green brought once more.

An instant later, the sand shifted violently into the air. A jagged path of sand and dirt separated in the wake of the green light.

The Angel had vanished.

***

“I can do this...”

Even if she didn't quite believe in what she was saying, she repeated the mantra under her breath regardless. There was still that little whisper in the back of her mind that told her she had just as much of a chance of doing well as her classmates did.

It was unfortunate that the voice calling her out all her failures was that much louder.

As the little witch wandered away from her classmates she pushed her wand out before her and began to chant. The summoning ceremony was most important. It gave her whole life a moment in time where she could be recognised as a true mage. She had told the others – on maybe one too many occasions – that she would summon a dragon, or some other deliriously humongous and magnificent beast.

Maybe even something that would make even Kirche jealous.

“I beg of you my slave who lives somewhere in the universe!”

But on the inside of her own little pink-haired head, she had stopped believing that would actually happen a long time ago. She said it to everyone else, sure; what else could she do to keep her pride from withering away into nothing. At this point if she got a rabbit to pull out of a hat she would be more than happy. Or a dog to stand guard by her side as the world looked down on her. Something to keep her company, to protect her.

“Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!” she sang, “I desire and here I plead from my heart!”

Maybe even something she could actually relate to; a sorry little creature just as secluded and alone in the world as she was.

“Answer to my guidance!”

Her eyes were closed, and her head was held to the side as she cast her spell. If there was going to be another of her usual explosions, she really didn't want dirt in her eyes. It seemed for a moment as if nothing would happen at all until everything seemed to just happen all at once.

Daring to open her eyes, Louise saw the ground light up as a circle drew itself onto the very grass she stood on and archaic glyphs spread around inside. Much like the students before her, the ritual was working. And much to the small mage's delight, her summoning was taking place.

With her eyes wide and her mouth hung open in a smile only slightly too wide, Louise moved several paces back from the summoning circle. Out of respect, and maybe astonishment, those behind her did the same.

Colbert let his hands fall calmly behind his back as a softer smile graced his own lips.

Before she’d even finished moving back, however, Louise was forced off her feet as the ground above the glyphs erupted into an almighty mess of dust and dirt. She was quick to cover her eyes and mouth, though not before she found her back aching and sore against the grass.

“Ugh,” was all she managed. There really wasn’t much else she wanted to say on the matter. Leaning her arms back against the ground, Louise pushed her way up until she was sat haphazardly on the lawn. “Great...”

When she finally glanced through the dust towards the newly formed crater in the grass, she was rather surprised to see the area relatively clear. Far from as intact and natural as it had been, but not quite destroyed. Nothing close to what her usual explosions could cause to soft earth.

There was a brief flash of green and, very suddenly, the view cleared. The very air around her rushed and retracted into the green light as it vanished to reveal something else she hadn’t quite expected.

In place of the summoning circle was a figure. Rested on a mound of torn earth, it was a grey shape that could, at a stretch, perhaps be said to resemble a human being. Yet there was no face; only a smooth collection of worn grooves.

The body was twisted, the head facing in the vague direction of the academy. The arms were held out, grasping towards something unseen to all but those who had crafted the figure in the first place.

It was a statue. She’d summoned a statue.

An ugly one.

Kirche, as always, was quick to latch onto Louise’s latest in a long line of failures.

“Is this meant to be your almighty familiar, Louise?” she guffawed, enticing laughter from those around her. Not everyone seemed as enthusiastic as her. “Only you could manage to summon a statue as your familiar!”

Louise wasn’t quite sure she’d heard her. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was hearing anything at all. The only thought going through her mind, the only thing even remotely important to her, was the idea that not only had she perhaps failed to summon a familiar, she had instead summoned a statue.

An ugly, deformed statue.

A thousand separate and horrid thoughts flashed rapidly through her mind, each one focused on how her life would go forward after the day ended. Each one spread out like a plague into her future, twisting until each one became a nightmare, regardless of how optimistic an outlook she forced onto it.

“A statue...”

Why couldn't she have been given one chance? If she'd summoned a proper familiar it would have at least cemented her status as a mage, even if she couldn't use magic very well. It would have allowed her to at least stay comfortably within the family and keep her marriage proposal open.

Her family.

What was her mother going to say? Would Louise be banished from the family? Would any of them even speak to her after this? Her sisters, perhaps, but her mother was far harder to predict. The woman adored her status and everything that it implied.

That her youngest daughter couldn’t even summon a familiar... Louise couldn’t even imagine what the appropriate response would be. There simply wasn’t one other than humiliation when it came to her mother; she’d be so ashamed of her. Perhaps even furious.

Louise came to the blunt realisation that she’d ruined her life. There was no other explanation in her mind. There simply wasn’t.

Her life was over.

She felt her breaths become laboured. Each one came faster and faster until all she could feel was the rush off blood in her head and the pounding of her heart against her chest. She felt a numbness spreading from behind her eyes.

“Miss Vallière?” The sound of her teacher gently pulled her back into reality. There was a brief pause before Colbert spoke again. “Miss Vallière, I’m afraid we really must complete the ritual.”

There was no real tone behind his voice, though Louise couldn’t find the urge to even wonder if she cared. He asked once more before her legs began to move of their own accord. Her actions felt automatic as she held her wand tight in her hands. The skin at her knuckles felt taught.

When she looked again she was inches away from her statue.

Now that she was closer, she noticed that the face wasn’t as bare as she had thought it to be. There was a distinct nose and set of lips carved into the stone. The eyes were incomplete, yet just visible from the rest of the face. She was so sure it had been blank.

The pupils were faded and flat.

“Pentagon of...the–” Louise began, the words simply tumbling out her mouth as she’d practised. She’d spent so long working on what to say, and just how she was going to say it.

It was a pity that it didn’t seem to matter in the end. No matter how much she had practised, the whole thing had still failed miserably.

Realising she hadn’t actually finished with the ritual, Louise took a shaky breath in through her clenched teeth. A sting itching behind her eyes and the familiar burn of tears was threatening to overcome her.

But before she could even open her mouth there was a flash behind her eyes. A horrid, rough light that seemed to rub against the inside of her head the moment she’d noticed it.

She clenched her eyelids closed and shook the discomfort from her head.

"Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers,” she finally said, ignoring the feeling. Whatever it was, she could deal with it on her own time. She didn’t want to drag the lesson out any longer. “Grant your blessings upon this–” She struggled to even complete the next word. It felt so inaccurate. “This creature and bind it as my familiar...”

In keeping with the others before her, Louise stood on the tip of her toes and planted a soft kiss on the statue. She had aimed for the cheek, but her height only granted her access to the chin. It didn’t seem to matter where she kissed it regardless; it was only a statue.

Not sure what to expect, Louise simply moved away from her new statue and turned back to face her peers. Colbert was saying something to her in a soothing voice, but Louise drowned him out. All eyes were on her, and she didn’t want them to be.

She made to go through them, to her room, when there was a sudden intense pain at the back of her head. Her body was yanked backward; the roots of her hair stung as whole roots felt as if the had been ripped clean from her scalp.

Then she heard the unified gasps and screams of her classmates.

“Miss Vallière!” Colbert called, already running towards her.

Louise struggled to turn, only enticing several sharps pains from the back of her head. But she twisted enough, and through the corner of her eye she saw what had grabbed her.

Its mouth was open wide, grimacing and revealing several dozen uneven carved teeth. The eyes, still empty, were raw and fierce under the weight of the brows above it. If there were pupils there, even without seeing them, Louise would say they could only have been burning.

It was her statue. It was alive.

And tearing out her hair.

Her heart thumped horridly against her chest for several seconds. The pressure building there brought panic, which only forced her lungs to breathe ever harder. More panic, faster beatings of the heart. Panic, and then breathing. Panic, thumping. The cycle continued even as Colbert latched onto her wrist, a spell roaring from his lips.

The next thing Louise knew, she was being pulled away from her statue, a new kind of heat at the back of her head. Ash and the scent of burning filtered heavily through her nostrils as Colbert continued to guide her back towards the rest of the class.

Most of them had already turned and fled along with their familiars. Only a scarce few remained in the courtyard with Tabitha, Guiche and Kirche amongst them.

Louise didn’t want to turn around again. She didn’t want to see that face. All those teeth and those empty eyes staring into her. That they could be so close to her again; the thought alone told her it would be better to run and hide along with the others.

But with that thought came the realisation that, perhaps, her future could be salvaged, that her world wasn’t over. Out of curiosity, or madness, she did turn around. She had expected to see the statue again, right in front of her eyes.

Instead, it was where she had left it behind. Stood on the grass, with venom it is eyes and thick clumps of singed pink hair webbed through its stone fingers.

It hadn’t moved an inch.

Her focus once again strayed to the dull ache in her head, only now it was something else entirely. A rush in her mind; like air flowing through a cold hallway. Yet, not actual air. It was more like a light, or a heavy thought given form inside her mind.

It got heavier, and heavier, until she could only close her eyes. She forced the palm of her hands over her eye sockets. She felt Colbert rest a hand on her shoulder, “Miss Val-“

He never got to finish. There was another gasp and, when Louise forced her eyes open, the statue had once again moved.

It was closer. A single hand was outstretched towards Louise, the locks of hair abandoned on the grass behind it. A corroded pair of sturdy wings was splayed out behind the figures back.

The figure almost looked female, the teeth sharp and precise.

Louise was unable to stop herself flinching back. Colbert, much unlike his usual demeanour, was less than hesitant to join her apprehension and let her body shift on its own. He did, however, keep his staff held firmly within his grasp.

“Stop! Don’t move!” He swiftly raised it towards the still statue. The statue did not make to move, and it was with that reaction he wondered how appropriate his choice of words had been. He wondered if, bizarrely, the statue had actually moved at all. “What are you?”

As all eyes sat on the forming angel before them, it did not move. It stayed still, perpetually fierce and reaching out for Louise.

After several minutes of looking and wondering, Colbert moved closer. He raised a hand to the eyes, waving his palm in front of them several times before wandering behind it. He tapped his staff against the stone of the head, peering at the wings and repeating the process there.

The statue still didn’t move.

Was it... obeying his command? That seemed almost too naive and farfetched an idea to consider. Yet, there wasn’t much else he could think to consider. Louise wondered much the same thing.

Without much else to go on, Louise stepped ever so slightly forward from what remained of her class. She cleared her throat and meekly raised a hand.

“H-Hello...” she said, waving. She stood no more than a few meters away, whilst Colbert kept his own watch over the creature from behind. The statue still didn’t move. “Hello. My name is Louise. Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière,” she eventually added. The shiver was gone was her voice, yet the creeping fear moving up and down her spine did not escape her.

“I don’t know what you are or ...” She stumbled over her own tongue, losing the correct set of words to say. “B-But I’m the one who brought you here.”

She wasn’t quite sure when – or why – but the remainder of the students had begun to creep away from the courtyard. Kirche and Tabitha still waited out the experience, however. Guiche ever so slightly behind them, though seemingly more inclined to simply flee to the comfort of his room.

“You are my familiar. I summoned you here, which means you have to do as I say. And you s-shouldn’t attack me or anyone else unless I say so.” She absently reached for the back of her head. She felt the scorched strands of hair there and winced when she felt a small patch with no hair at all. It was wet. “Ever.”

The statue stayed still. It was then that Louise noticed it was even more like a fine piece of art. The face had depth, each line formed into the stone perfect and smooth. Pointed nails were affixed to the end of each finger and the wings upon its back had feathers. Each was soft and flawless in appearance, but Colbert all but proved with his staff that they were indeed made from stone.

A stone angel. Or a fallen angel, Louise mused. Its visage was far from heavenly.

But beyond all that there was something imperfect. Above the angel’s eyes were markings, carved into the stone, unlike every other part of it. Oddly different from what it should have been. Whatever restored its form must have had a hand in the markings too. The ceremony often did such things to older creatures – it restored their strength, or those close to death – it healed them. Maybe this was just how it dealt with statues.

Louise vaguely felt something within her own head. A stray thought of something she couldn’t explain. It was quickly forgotten.

“Do you understand me?” she asked, unsure of herself.

Again, there was no answer. Nothing to indicate the angel could hear her.

There was a new voice from behind her. “Maybe it’s some kind of golem?” It was Guiche de Gramont. “They don’t really need to move all that much.”

“A good theory, de Gramont,” Colbert offered. “I thought as much myself. Though even for a golem it’s oddly unresponsive.”

“Maybe Louise isn’t good enough to order it around,” Kirche confidently stated. Colbert caught her eye and glared her way, enticing a tired sigh from the girl. “If it’s just going to stand around for the rest of today I’m not going to copy it. Come along, Flame.”

Kirche took her exit, her newly acquired salamander following her every step. Once she’d reached the doors to the academy and vanished, Tabitha wordlessly followed along behind her.

Guiche looked around, noticing that he was, now, the only person left from the rest of the class. He became instantly aware of how close he was to the stone angel. The only thing between him and it was Louise.

His own familiar was huddled up against him leg. Belldandy wouldn’t so much as glance at the statue.

“I don’t suppose I could take my leave?” he asked.

Colbert sighed and wandered back towards the boy. “I don’t see why not. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to do either.” Once there he promptly crossed his arms and stared up towards the headmaster’s tower. “Perhaps it would be best to get a second opinion...”

Louise just kept looking. She wondered about what to do as well. Minutes ago she had been terrified, but now she only wondered what she was meant to think about her familiar. She may have summoned a statue, but it wasn’t simply a statue. And a golem was really more than she could have asked for. It was certainly better than a dog or bunny.

Though why she would get such a creature, and not the likes of Guiche, she couldn’t fathom. Her penchant for magic for… non-existent, Earth magic very much included.

Either way, she was relieved, in s strange sort of way. She hadn’t failed completely. She had successfully summoned a familiar. Arguably, one that was more magical than a few of her classmates. But after those moments of blunt depression and the horrifying minutes that followed, her mind couldn’t decide where it wanted to stand.

Then she blinked.

Barely a moment at all had passed and her familiar had finally moved. It was inches from her face, staring into her eyes. Its own eyes were wide and blank. Louise involuntarily flinched back a few steps, her breathing picking up before she noticed that her statue had once again changed.

It was completely smooth. Every kind of deformity and crack in the surface had vanished. It was a complete statue of, in Louise’s opinion, very high quality. If it were made of marble she would have classed it perfect.

All except for the symbols across the forehead.

Louise felt that now familiar sting behind her eyes again, that mental brush of air inside her mind and the heaviness that somehow came with it. It was almost like having dust in her eyes, except further back and heavier inside her head.

Rubbing her eyes once more, she pulled them away to see that the statue had moved once more. Their noses were touching, the eyes unblinking. An empty smile rested on the statues lips.

Louise fell back this time. Her statue was just still, bent down to match the height where her head had been.

“Miss Vallière?” Colbert called. She turned to see his face concerned. She felt a panic fall over her as she turned back to face her statue. It hadn’t moved. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, sir. “I’m just–“ she answered, rubbing at her eyes. “There’s something in my eyes. It doesn’t feel right.”

“After all the dust your familiar brought with it, I’m not surprised.” He seemed to finally register that it had, indeed, moved once again. “How did you get it to move?”

“I don’t know. It just... it can hear me.” Louise froze. She hadn’t meant those final words. “It can hear me,” she repeated.

“You’re familiar can hear you? Have you tried talking to it?”

“I-I didn’t say that!” she cried. “Professor, I didn’t say that!”

Colbert eyed the statue, nodding to Louise carefully. “It’s okay, Miss Vallière. Please, calm down.” He turned to Guiche. “De Gramont!”

“Y-Yes, sir?”

“Go and get Headmaster Osmond. And any other teachers you find on the way there. Something’s not right...”

As Guiche did as he was told, Louise looked back to her statue. It still had that faux smile over its face. It was nothing close to a true or honest smile in any meaning of the word.

“It can hear me,” Louise repeated again. Her hands were shivering. “It can hear me.”

“Take a deep breath, Miss Vallière. I’m here, and soon the faculty will be too. You have nothing to worry about.”

Louise sat still on the ground, only meagrely nodding after she released a long breath of air from her lungs.

“Louise can hear me,” she said, still nodding. Her brow furrowed. She swallowed slowly and opened her mouth again, ready to let the words crawl out. “Louise can hear me...”

She looked up to the angel to find it now looking down over its nose. Its hands were twisted into vicious claws, yet it was still smiling.

Colbert was next to talk. “A-Are you talking through Miss Vallière?”

“Louise can talk for me,” Louise affirmed. Her hands begun to shake once more, but this time Colbert reach down and took both of them in his own. “It can talk for me.”

“Then at least tell us what you are.”

“I am an Angel,” Louise said. She no longer fought against it. She merely let her vocal cords carry the sounds she wasn’t making. Without her to guide it, the voice came without emotion or any sort of feeling. It was simply a voice with nothing behind it. “Is that not obvious to you?”

“I’ve never heard of an angel like you,” Colbert spat.

“Then the pleasure is all mine.”

Colbert turned to look at Louise’s still shivering hands when he felt a pressure at his shoulder. He turned back to see the angel’s hand grasp around his coat.

He fell away, jerking back as the angel’s hand clutched at his coat. Quickly as he could manage, he removed it and lifted Louise to her feet. He pulled her back several steps.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Louise replied.

“Moving when we aren’t looking.”

“Did it occur to you that I don’t have a choice?”

That stopped Colbert. He briefly looked back down to Louise. She briefly looked up to him before they both turned back and saw the angel back in front of them.

“You... you have no choice?”

“It is a fact of our biology, the way we work. Though it does please me to see you all so frightened.”

“So all we have to do is keep our eyes on you and you can’t move?”

“You say that like it is a simple matter, Mister Colbert,” Louise said. The faint twitch of a smile spread over her face before it swiftly vanished. “We shall see how long you last.”

Colbert didn’t bother taking the challenge. He instead began to pull Louise further towards the castle, his eyes fixed on the angel, when she spoke out of her own accord.

“You still haven’t said why you’re trying to hurt us.”

There was a brief silence as Louise simply stared at the statue. Her head still felt itchy behind her eyes. Her eyes felt itchy too.

“I didn’t know why I was here,” Louise said, replying to her own question.

“I told you why you were here.”

“And you still have the rest of your hair. Perhaps it is a coincidence?”

Louise thought on that for a moment. The angel hadn’t outright attacked her since then, she supposed. Colbert, perhaps, but even then it had only grabbed at his coat.

“And you are okay with us now, just like that?”

“As long as you keep feeding me.”

Louise swallowed hard.

“A-And what is it you eat?”

“Energy, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière,” the angel said through Louise. Louise felt her lips curve into a grin as her teeth became exposed. She almost felt like laughing. “And you _reek_ of it!”

_***_

It was strange, Louise thought. To think that, after all her fretting and worrying in the weeks leading up to the ceremony, she had summoned one of the most unique familiars the academy had ever seen; a stone angel that could only move when no one was looking.

It was almost a thing of fairytales; something that adults would come up with to scare children into being nice and obedient. It brought to mind the game she used to play as a child; the one where you would face a wall and turn to ask an old wolf for the time.

Yet, that same power limited what she could do with her familiar. As was customary for the day following the summoning ceremony, she was given the day free from lessons in order to bond with her new familiar.

Unlike everyone else within the courtyard – who were playing games or working out, with the help of the maids, what their familiar ate – Louise was sat with her back comfortably against the walls of the academy.

She sat there, and had been for fifteen odd minutes, talking to herself. The imposing figure of the angel stood watch over her, casting a dark shadow over Louise’s face.

“So... you can read all of my thoughts?”

“If I wish to, Louise.”

“I don’t think I like that.”

“No,” Nightmare agreed. “You don’t.”

Louise had also decided that her familiar needed a name. For what was her familiar if not a nightmare dressed like a daydream? When asked for an opinion, her familiar had stated that she did not care what she was called, so long as she was fed.

For the same reason, Louise had also decided that Nightmare was female. It felt odd for anything else given that the angel spoke through her voice. Angels apparently did not have ‘difference of the flesh’, though, so she supposed it did not matter to Nightmare either way.

“We are beyond them,” Nightmare suddenly said.

“Stop doing that.”

“Stop what?” her voice asked innocently with a tilt of the head.

“You know what!”

“I know.”

It had not taken Nightmare long to adjust herself. With little effort she could make Louise talk or perform minor movement with her head. Louise prayed that it went no further than that; it was uncomfortable enough adjusting to such an arrangement.

To know that her own thoughts were no longer personal... it was hard. What else did she have that could be hers and hers alone if not her mind? It was such an odd concept to get her head around in such a short space of time that, by the minute, she found herself growing irked or paranoid in quick succession of each other.

“Your head is filled with such nonsense.”

Louise furrowed her brow at that. It felt oddly hurtful for such a strange statement.

“W-What?”

“You’re head is filled with such nonsense,” Nightmare repeated, her tone exactly the same as before. “So much unneeded information.”

“If you stopped going through my head then perhaps you wouldn’t find it so ridiculous.”

“It is different to my head,” Nightmare added, ignorant to Louise’s statement. “We are better than your kind. Our heads are not so cluttered.”

“You can’t be all that much better if you’re too shy to move in front of everyone...” Louise glanced up at her statue to see that the top half, the section her eyes couldn’t see, glaring down at her. “W-What I meant was–“

“Our kind has lived almost as long as the universe has existed,” she interrupted, pulling Louise’s words away and substituting her own. “You are all so small. Humankind is a child to us.”

“How long do Angels live for then?” Louise asked, her curiosity piqued. “How old are you?”

“We live for as long as we are allowed. Until energy runs dry,” Nightmare replied. Louise found the answer lacking, but quickly let the thought wither away. “I do not know how old I am. Age does not matter to me. ”

“At all? You have no idea?”

“I have an idea. I know that time has passed me by. Since my birth, several million stars have burned from existence. Planets have vanished and civilisations have ceased to be.” The Angel’s head had moved back to its former position; neutral with that sickly smile. “That is how old I am. I simply do not care.”

“...I’m only sixteen,” Louise sighed.

“I know,” Nightmare replied.

Louise could only grumble under her breath. It rather spoiled the revelation that her familiar was far older than most things she knew. Countries and cultures paled in comparison to how old her familiar was.

Unless Nightmare was lying about her age, of course. Louise wouldn’t put it past her at this point.

“I am not above lying,” Nightmare affirmed. “It can be rather fun.”

“Of course,” Louise mumbled, gently rolling her eyes as she rested her head onto the castle wall. She closed her eyes, pulling in a long, easy breath before letting it go.

There was a sudden scream before she could open her eyes. When she did, Nightmare wasn’t where she had been.

A quick glance across the courtyard confirmed who had screamed however. Kirche was screaming obscenities in, at the very least, two languages as Nightmare stood motionless opposite her. When the red head locked eyes with Louise she promptly began to march her way over.

_“Zero!”_

Louise let her head fall back against the wall of the castle. “Yes?” she groaned.

“If you can’t make your familiar listen to you would you at least keep it on a leash?!”

Louise pondered the idea, though stopped when she saw that Nightmare had already moved several meters closer to Kirche from where they had been.

“If you want to try and put Nightmare on a leash then be my guest,” Louise replied. “You can have your arm pulled off when she moves.”

In another instant Nightmare was grabbing at Kirche’s wrist. The redhead fell back midstride.

“I would be glad to oblige,” Louise felt herself say. Her lips twitched into what could have been a smile. “It would be exceedingly simple. Like thread from a spool.”

While Kirche did her best to glare in Louise’s direction, her attention was dominated by the statue holding her wrist. Nightmare’s hand was perfectly formed around the flesh; as if it were a single stone carved in the image. As if they had always existed together.

“L-Let go of me!” she roared, a twinge of something less fiery lost inside her voice. “Zero, make it let me go!”

For all she thought she would enjoy seeing Kirche grow scared, there was something in Louise that despised it at the same time. She remembered how she had felt with Nightmare’s hand wrapped through her hair. How, in that moment, she had felt so helpless and frightened. The feeling of her heart and lungs going into overdrive at the mere thought she was in danger.

It seemed cruel to want that upon someone else. Even for someone like Kirche.

But she began to say something else instead. “I have seen your face, Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst.”

Kirche paled. “W-What?”

Louise struggled to clear her throat; something she found helped her regain control. Apparently, it didn’t want to work. Or maybe it had never worked in the first place.

“You are so littered through her mind. So much cruelty and needless aggravation. There are words she uses to describe you. Would you like to hear them?”

Kirche seemed to ignore the question, instead calling. “Flame!” Somewhere in the distance Louise could see a salamander shifting on its small legs, moving away from the maids and their food.

“Horrid,” Louise said. Kirche turned to face her, flinching when Nightmare was out of her line of sight. The flesh of her hand was beginning to tinge a dim shade of purple. “Bully.”

Kirche kept her eyes locked on the statue after that. She kept her sights squarely on her wrist.

Louise felt her heartrate increase once more. She felt a breathlessness take over as her mouth refused to breathe for her. It only spoke words she didn’t want to say.

“Bitch,” Louise said, her tone hollow. She couldn’t keep the words inside. “She would do so many cruel things to you if she had the chance. There have been so many thoughts on the matter. She would very much like to repay you for the things you have done to her.”

The next words were not what Louise had expected. They were frantic, desperate. “I-I’m sorry!”

Louise moved her head. She looked into Kirche, and the redhead did the same. There was a sickening crunch as Kirche wailed out in pain. Behind her head, Louise could see a wider smile forming on Nightmare’s face.

Tears began to sting behind Louise’s eyes. Attention had begun to fall upon her. Other students around the courtyard were stopping. They were turning to look at her; others were moving to meet them.

A few were running inside the castle, screaming the names of various teachers and professors.

Stop this, Louise thought. I don’t want this.

“Are you really sorry?” Nightmare asked. “I think you’re lying.”

“N-No!” Kirche screamed. Her hand was a deep purple now, blotched with black. She turned to Louise again, uttering between sobs. “I’m sorry, Louise! Please! Make it let me go!”

Louise found herself crying. Yet Nightmare still spoke in the same voice. “You want me to let you go?”

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

Kirche wasn’t the only to reply. Louise found her voice at the same time, her words mixed with the sobs she couldn’t convey.

 _“Yes!”_ both girls screamed in unison. Both girls were crying, though their pain was vastly different.

“Then all you have to do is close your eyes,” Nightmare stated, slowly. “Make everyone closes their eyes.”

Staff and students were moving in on the scene. Colbert could be seen forcing his way through one of the academy doors. Flame was roaring from the sides, something hot and viscous dripping from his maw and onto the grass.

Many of the students had their wands and staffs at hand. Very few made their move. In the distance, Louise could make out Guiche summoning a golem of his own. She wasn’t sure what it was going to accomplish, but whatever it was couldn’t happen fast enough.

“Close your eyes!” Louise wailed. She curled into the grass. Her hands gripped tightly at her shirt. “Do it!”

Louise couldn’t bear to look. There were droplets of red falling from beneath Nightmare’s grasp. She forced her face into grass, clenching her eyes shut and pushing her mouth towards the dirt. She didn’t want to speak anymore.

She could hear Colbert repeating her command, and what she assumed was several of the teachers. A few seconds passed, and before Louise could even think there was a dull thud on the grass close to her. Kirche was screaming again, something Germanic cursing from her lips between broken sobs.

Their names were being called, but Louise didn’t care. She didn’t want to hear them, or look at them. She only wanted to be alone in her mind. With her eyes closed, and her mouth pressed hard against the dirt, she finally felt she could.

***

Louise did not wish to be where she was, but it felt right all the same. The medical wing of the academy was not a welcoming place. The walls were much the same as the rest of the building, yet their embrace was only for those who were ill or damaged. You didn’t come here out of choice, she thought. Even to visit, you wished the people inside the rooms didn’t have to be.

Kirche sat silently in her allotted bed, her left wrist bound in several layers of bloody bandage. It would heal, Louise had been told. It would take several spells to soothe the muscle and repair the bone, but it would grow back to normal with time.

“I’m sorry,” Louise said, sitting in the chair next to the bed.

“You said,” the other girl plainly replied.

She had. Louise didn’t know how to reply to that. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was meant to say. The entire situation left a bitterness on her tongue that refused to leave.

She didn’t wish this upon Kirche. The girl was far from someone she agreed with, and Louise would be the first to admit she didn’t like her. They butted heads constantly, and refused to see eye to eye on any given situation.

Yet Louise had never wanted to hurt her like this. Embarrass and verbally harass her, perhaps. Nothing that drew blood. Certainly nothing that warranted the horrid snap that Nightmare had caused in her wrist. Such a sickly sound; it drew knots in her stomach even now.

“Where’s your familiar now?” Kirche eventually asked.

“I-I don’t know...” Louise didn’t really want to know. “I haven’t checked.”

“Maybe you should be out looking for it, then,” Kirche said. “There are only eight beds in here, after all.”

“I didn’t want this to happen to you. I’m not like that.”

“Oh, please; you’ve wanted this for years. Your familiar even said so.”

“Not like this,” Louise hissed. “I don’t like you. And I know you don’t like me, but I never wanted this to happen. I didn’t want anyone in here.”

“Well, I am in here. Looks like you got half your wish.”

Louise sat there for several minutes more, stewing in the silence that seemed to spread and seep into every corner of the room. She felt she could barely move through it, lest something else happen that she’d regret.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when Kirche eventually spoke again.

“How are you?”

Louise simply sat there, wondering for herself.

“I... I don’t know. Not good, I think.”

“You look about as good as that, at any rate,” the girl added. “I know you don’t want to be here, and I’m not sure I want to see you right now either. Go and sleep or something; you could use the beauty sleep.”

Merely nodding in reply, willing to accept the advice as if it were from a teacher or scholar, Louise followed the motions her legs took her through until she found herself on her own bed. Her mind pleaded her to change from her clothes, to conform to at least one shred to etiquette, but there was nothing in her body that agreed with the notion.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep, wishing nothing to be there when they opened again.


	7. Remember, Remember

**Remember, Remember**  
_Guy Fawkes, 31 January 1606_

_Remember, remember the Fifth of November_  
_The Gunpowder Treason and Plot._  
_I know of no reason_  
_Why the Gunpowder Treason_  
_Should ever be forgot._

_Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent,_  
_To blow up the King and Parli'ment._  
_Three-score barrels of powder below,_  
_To prove old England's overthrow;_

_By God's providence he was catch'd_  
_With a dark lantern and burning match._  
_He was to hang in open sight_  
_To all of England's great delight!_

_But upon the morn' of judgements hand_  
_A broken light did take that man._  
_And once the light had made its claim,_  
_Guy Fawkes was ne'er seen again._

_Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring._  
_Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!_

_And where was Fawkes taken? God knows!_

_God knows!_


End file.
